Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall

Protect applications wherever they live

As attackers weaponize AI, traditional security approaches fall short. Defenders need a distributed security fabric with unified management that is optimized for zero trust to protect applications, users, and devices across data center, cloud, campus, branch, and IoT environments.

What is Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall?

This single-management interface security solution security solution unifies distributed enforcement points—including firewalls, smart switches, agents AI guardrails, and third-party firewalls—across your data center, branch, cloud, campus, and IoT environments.

Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall enables you to stop advanced threats, protect the development and deployment of AI models, shield vulnerabilities, and stop unauthorized lateral movement.

Policy is orchestrated by Cisco Security Cloud Control—a unified, intent-based console that applies the correct access control to the appropriate enforcement point.​

Illustration displaying unified policy enforcement across environments Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall implements consistent policies across your hybrid enterprise, reducing risk, increasing confidence in AI adoption, and simplifying security operations. 

The Cisco advantage

Price-performance leadership

Gain up to 2.4 times faster throughput per dollar with more decryption and inspection capacity for your investment.

Enhanced encrypted traffic inspection

Provide visibility to malicious flows in encrypted traffic without decryption and sacrificing performance with Cisco Encrypted Visibility Engine.

End-to-end segmentation

Stop unauthorized lateral movement with identity-aware, zero-trust segmentation from the network edge down to the process level—with and without agents.

Start your Hybrid Mesh Firewall journey today

As a Cisco Firewall customer, you can easily migrate your security policies to our AI-powered cloud management interface, Cisco Security Cloud Control.

Decide which Cisco firewall is right for you

Answer the following questions to find out which offering is the best fit for your needs.

Hybrid Mesh Firewall results

The technology behind Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall delivers powerful protection across your enterprise for users, devices, and applications.

Outcomes

Protect AI workloads

Protect the development and deployment of AI applications, including agents and MCP servers. Safeguard your AI operations with AI supply-chain scanning, algorithmic red teaming, and native guardrails—powered by Cisco AI Defense.

Protect Kubernetes environments

Get kernel level visibility and control for runtime security in Kubernetes environments using eBPF, powered by Isovalent Enterprise Platform.

End-to-end segmentation

Reduce the attack surface and prevent unauthorized lateral movement with identity-driven macro and microsegmentation for any application in any environment, powered by Cisco Secure Workload.

Stop advanced threats

Find malicious flows in encrypted traffic and intelligently decrypt without sacrificing performance with Cisco Encrypted Visibility Engine (EVE). Stop zero-days by leveraging Snort ML and Talos Threat intelligence, powered by Cisco Firewall.

Consistent multicloud firewalling

Extend Layer-7 firewalling capabilities to the cloud, natively. Leverage cloud agnostic automation and orchestration for deployment, scaling, and auto-healing of enforcement points, powered by Cisco Multicloud Defense.

Shield vulnerabilities

Prioritize vulnerable apps, infrastructure, and operating systems. Apply compensating controls immediately to prevent exploitation while patches are being developed, powered by Cisco Hypershield technology.

Unified agentic operations

Proactively analyze traffic, health, and configuration data across environments with agentic operations. Simplify rule creation, policy administration, and troubleshooting as well as orchestrate policies for Cisco and third-party firewalls.

Explore Security Cloud Control

Integrations

Zero Trust Access from Cisco

Enforce user policies on the Hybrid Mesh Firewall to provide direct access to sensitive applications and improve the experience for on-premises users.

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Share the identity context of users and devices, including IoT/OT, natively, with Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall solution for granular segmentation in the hybrid data center.

Splunk

Reveal more critical security insights and accelerate threat response. Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense customers who subscribe to Splunk may be eligible for extra log data at no additional licensing cost.

Cisco Cloud Protection Suite

Simple, flexible licensing

The Cisco Cloud Protection Suite marries simplicity, flexibility, and investment protection for easy adoption of Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall.

How customers use Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall

FAQ

Find answers to frequently asked questions about Hybrid Mesh Firewall.

The distributed nature of today's IT environments has made it difficult for organizations to manage and share firewall policies across different form factors and locales. Additionally, hybrid environments leave organizations vulnerable to lateral movement of attacks, leading to costly breaches. Compounding these issues, the rise of AI has introduced a new attack surface that traditional security tools were not designed to address.

Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall provides advanced threat protection and consistent security while increasing operation efficiency. It enables advanced macro and granular microsegmentation capabilities to prevent unauthorized lateral movement and protect critical applications. Additionally, it includes the ability to protect development and deployment of AI-enabled applications through specialized guardrails.

Traditional firewalls protect specific network boundaries with a standalone appliance that can be either physical or virtual. In contrast, a hybrid mesh firewall architecture is managed by a unified, cloud-based management interface that coordinates security enforcement across various firewall form factors. This enables security enforcement across different points in the network such as the perimeter and between zones. Cisco takes this concept a step further to include advanced security controls such as robust microsegmentation, the ability to protect the development and deployment of AI models, mitigate application vulnerabilities, and orchestrate third-party firewall policies.

Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall includes all capabilities from our next-generation firewall solutions such as encrypted traffic inspection, zero-day threat protection powered by Snort ML and Talos Threat Intelligence, and threat discovery. Additionally, Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall includes advanced macro-to-microsegmentation segmentation capabilities for protecting applications in any environment—including modern Kubernetes. It can also discover and prioritize vulnerabilities and apply compensating controls to shield vulnerable applications and infrastructure during patch development. It is also capable of protecting the development and deployment of AI models as well as orchestrate third-party firewall policies. All capabilities are accessed centrally through Cisco Security Cloud Control—Cisco's cloud-based, unified management interface.

Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall is cloud agnostic, leveraging cloud-native automation and orchestration to easily extend Layer-7 firewalling capabilities across leading cloud environments. With Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall, customers can automate the deployment, scaling, and healing of firewalls, including the required infrastructure and routing. To protect applications, Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall provides robust segmentation capabilities (macro and micro) across hybrid environments with or without agents. All enforcement points are managed through Cisco Security Cloud Control.

Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall allows you to add enforcement points overtime without the need to rip and replace the current tools in your environment. For example, a customer may start with our firewalls for zone-based segmentation and add microsegmentation capabilities over time. Additionally, Cisco Security Cloud Control is included with our hybrid mesh firewall solution, simplifying management and increasing productivity even as you scale enforcement points.

Start with any of the tools in the Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall solution and add at your own pace. Core software technologies can be easily consumed through the Cisco Cloud Protection Suite, which marries simplicity, flexibility, and investment protection. Contact your Cisco sales representative to learn more.

A fundamentally new approach to firewalling

Enforcement points change; policies don't. See how you can get started with Hybrid Mesh Firewall that meets you where you are for securing your hybrid enterprise.