Deployment Considerations: Comparing Converged and Dedicated Security Appliances Click here
Even with considerable investment in network security, protecting an enterprise network is a monumental task. Defense systems made up entirely of dedicated point solutions have become so complex that whenever threats evolve or business needs change, the network simply cannot adapt quickly or effectively enough.
The Cisco ASA 5500 Series changes all this by providing enterprise security systems with an essential advantage - flexibility. It can be deployed as a converged threat prevention device. It can be used as a dedicated VPN termination device. It can also be used for access control and to guard against worm, viruses or other malware that internal users unknowingly bring into the network.
In short, depending on your enterprises particular security needs at any given point in time, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series is whatever you want it to be.
There are three principle characteristics of the Self Defending Network:
The integration of security throughout all aspects of the network.
Collaborative processes occurring between the various security network elements.
The ability of the network to adapt to new threats as they arise.
What is An Adaptive Defense?
An Adaptive Defense is not a new technology, but a new approach to combining and applying technologies to provide your network with more comprehensive and proactive security. These technologies include:
Anti-virus / Firewall - to protect the network perimeter from known viruses
Virtual private networks (VPN) - for secure remote connectivity
Intrusion prevention system (IPS) - to accurately detect and stop malicious traffic
Application security - to combat attacks targeted at applications
An Adaptive Defense allows you to run and manage all of these using a single, easy-to-administer platform. The unified approach means that, instead of operating in isolation, each of these components work together more intelligently and proactively.
Depending on your specific business or security needs, Adaptive Defense lets you apply security where you need it most. When your business needs change, it also lets you adapt the architecture or extend its features quickly, painlessly and cost-effectively.
Why is it critical to your business?
Your network needs to be secure to be productive
Your defense system needs to be effective not only now, but in the future
Without an Adaptive Defense, security costs will continue to mount as you fix problem after problem
Converging technologies on a single platform make security far more manageable and effective
Cisco ASA delivers a powerful combination of market-proven technologies on a single platform. The following table summarises how each of these technologies plays a pivotal role in protecting your network. Used together, they provide comprehensive, proactive and adaptive defense against the broadest range of threats today - and tomorrow.
Cisco Pix Firewall Technologies: Provide advanced application and protocol inspection services that examine network flows at Layers 2-7. It allows for more flexible access control and user, network and URL access control, and also includes a virtual firewall and L2 transparent firewall.
Cisco VPN 3000 Technologies: These include site-to-site and remote-access VPN services to enable secure connectivity across public networks for mobile users remote sites and business partners.
Cisco IPS Technologies: Through Cisco's Risk Rating and Meta Event Generator (MEG) technologies, this enables a far higher level of accuracy in identifying and stopping real threats, while minimising false alarms and allowing legitimate network traffic to flow smoothly.
Anti-X Defenses: These protect against network- and application-layer attacks, denial of service (DoS) attacks, as well as every form of malware, including worms, network viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, and adware.
Network containment and control: These offer a far higher level of control over application access and network traffic flows by allowing you to enforce corporate security policies, track the state of all network communications, and prevent unauthorized network access.
Cisco Networking Services: For seamless integration into your existing network environment, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series offers a host of network integration capabilities including IPv4 and IPv6 support, 802.1 q-based VLAN support, Open Shortest Path First (OSFP) routing services, Quality-of-Service (QoS), and more.
How the Cisco ASA 5500 Series secures your enterprise's network with far more flexibility.
While increasing network security, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series also gives you far more flexibility to deploy it in the most suitable and effective way. How you use it largely depends on your enterprise's specific business and security needs.
It can be deployed as a converged threat prevention device by using its access control, application inspection, as well as worm, virus, and other malware mitigation technologies. It's VPN capabilities can be used for either branch offices or remotes users. It can also be deployed in the network interior for inter-departmental access control to guard against threats unwittingly brought in by authorised users.
Because all these services reside on a single platform, the Cisco ASA 5500 vastly reduces the complexity of your enterprise's security environment, which consequently lowers deployment, operating and management costs. As your needs change and network threats evolve, the modular approach to the Cisco ASA 5500 architecture also enables existing services to be enhanced and new services to be added onto the same platform, without loss of speed or performance integrity.
Securing the Intelligent Information Network
By providing networkwide system security, the Self-Defending Network helps organizations and individuals improve productivity and reduce operational costs. Read Business Overview
Core Elements of the Cisco Self-Defending Network Strategy Read White Paper
Adaptive Defense: Presentation by Jayshree Ullal, Senior Vice President Watch Video
