Cisco enhances zero trust outcomes with Secure Access
As the first adopter of Cisco Secure Access, Cisco IT deployed it internally to 130,000 users. Learn how this zero trust approach strengthens our security posture and drives operational excellence.
Cisco IT needed a unified, cloud-based zero trust solution to secure internet and application access, modernizing protection for today's distributed work.
Challenge
Cisco IT needed to modernize legacy systems to support a distributed, evolving workforce and zero trust strategy. Key challenges included:
User frustration: Inconsistent access and experiences across different environments.
IT overhead: Excessive time spent maintaining numerous products and integrations.
Fragmented security: Security gaps from siloed teams and policies.
Evolving threats: New risks, like those from Generative AI, demanded stronger controls.
Distributed work: A hyper-distributed workforce required adaptable, unified solutions.
Solution
Cisco IT partnered with product and engineering teams to design, build, and internally deploy a unified platform as customer zero.
Cisco Secure Access: A Secure Services Edge (SSE) solution that provides integrated secure private application access everywhere, for users located anywhere. Unified security capabilities are delivered from the cloud to enhance zero trust initiatives and better protect against emerging AI-related threats.
Outcomes
Seamless user experience
Continuous, transparent validation enables secure, effortless access to applications—anytime, anywhere.
Consistent protection
Uniform security policies safeguard all users, devices, and locations to streamline IT, boost productivity, and minimize the attack surface.
Optimized IT resources
Cisco IT can focus on innovation and advanced security, not maintenance, for a distributed workforce.
Accelerated innovation
New capabilities and fixes can be deployed quickly, future-proofing user protection without hardware constraints.
Additional insights
Consistency and centralization
"We’ve seen reductions in mean time to troubleshoot by up to 25%. By centralizing telemetry and data, Cisco Secure Access streamlines incident management, eliminating the need for multiple teams to analyze networking and security data and sidestepping complex tasks like IP-user mapping."
Rich West, Principal Engineer
Cisco
Collaboration as customer zero
"The collaboration has been crucial to our success. We submitted over 95 feature requests that made it into the product and this incredible partnership helps our product engineering teams solve real problems for IT, and by doing that, we can solve the problems for our customers as well."
Roel Bernaerts, Principal Engineer
Cisco
Seamless security for employees
"The seamless user transition has been a key win for us. Despite the scale of change, we’ve seen minimal disruptions, which really speaks to the effort and collaboration behind the scenes. "
Chris Groves, Director, Network Engineering and Operations
Cisco
Simplicity and scalability
"Imagine the complexity of expanding your business into new regions or moving to a different colocation facility for your VPN, branch and internet edge. Cisco Secure Access transforms cloud edge expansion from a logistical marathon into a sprint, slashing setup times from months to mere hours. "
Jon Woolwine, Director, Network Engineering and Operations
Cisco
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