Cisco aiming to build a trusted and resilient future for the nation

Daisy Chittilapilly, President, Cisco India & SAARC 

The US-based technology firm, Cisco has announced its plans to expand its footprint in India by setting up a new data center in Chennai and upgrading the existing one in Mumbai to offer enhanced security solutions to customers.

During Cisco India Summit 2023 held in Jaipur, Rajasthan, Daisy Chittilapilly, President, Cisco India & SAARC, said, “At Cisco, we are committed to helping Indian organizations enhance security resilience so they can turn their digitization into a competitive advantage. We are introducing innovative cyber capabilities, expanding our security data center footprint, and continuing to build a dedicated engineering workforce in India to help organizations fortify their defenses and catalyze their transformation in the digital age.’’

It is also highlighted during the summit that India is a very important market for Cisco and also the second largest R&D center outside the USA. The company also has a sizeable workforce in India in the space of security engineering. These employees are instrumental in not only aiding the innovation of cutting-edge security solutions, but also supporting Cisco’s business model transformation towards software and subscriptions. 

Cisco also announced significant security innovations and investments in security infrastructure in the country to help organizations become more resilient and tackle the cybersecurity risks in a hybrid world. The company has introduced new risk-based capabilities across its security portfolio for hybrid and multi-cloud environments in India. These capabilities demonstrate progress towards realizing the full vision of the Cisco Security Cloud, which will safeguard the integrity of an organization's entire IT ecosystem. This includes the latest innovations in Zero Trust, application security, and secure connectivity.

Cisco announced the launch of several new features for its Duo Risk-Based Authentication solution. These features address security issues, including remembered devices and Wi-Fi Fingerprint to authenticate less often in trusted situations, Verified Push to protect against phishing attacks, and expanded SSO capabilities that notify and allow users to reset their passwords before they expire, improving productivity for modern enterprises.

At the same time, as apps become the business, Cisco announced that it has made a significant advancement in its application strategy with the introduction of Business Risk Observability, an industry-first enhancement to its Full-Stack Observability application security solution. Business Risk Observability provides a unique business risk scoring solution that combines Kenna Risk Meter score distribution and Business Transactions from Cisco AppDynamics.

With these new security investments and offerings, Cisco is helping build a trusted and resilient future for the nation.

In another announcement, Cisco reveals that only 24% of organizations in India have the ‘Mature’ level of readiness needed to be resilient against today’s modern cybersecurity risks, according to Cisco’s Cybersecurity Readiness Index. It has been developed against the backdrop of a post-COVID, hybrid world, where users and data must be secured wherever work gets done. The report highlights where businesses are doing well and where cybersecurity readiness gaps will widen if global business and security leaders don’t take action.

Organizations have moved from an operating model that was largely static – where people operated from single devices from one location, connecting to a static network – to a hybrid world in which they increasingly operate from multiple devices in multiple locations, connect to multiple networks, access applications in the cloud and on the go, and generate enormous amount of data. This presents new and unique cybersecurity challenges for companies.

“Organizations have moved from an operating model that was largely static to a hybrid world, which presents new and unique cybersecurity challenges. In this environment, understanding how organizations are preparing to deal with these new challenges is critical. The Index has been built with a focus on five core pillars of identity, devices, network, applications, and data, and examines organizational postures in securing these,” said Vish Iyer, Vice President, Architectures, Cisco APJC. “These five pillars need to be protected with a mix of point tools and integrated platforms to achieve security resilience while reducing complexity. Only then will businesses be able to close the cybersecurity readiness gap.”