Cisco continues to reimagine security for the AI era with new innovations

Cisco has made several transformative innovation and partnership announcements that will help security professionals secure and harness the power of AI. An increasingly sophisticated threat landscape combined with an expanding talent shortage means the need has never been greater for machine scale security and response. According to Cisco’s upcoming 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index, companies worldwide underestimate the complexities of securing AI, with 86% saying their organizations have experienced AI-related security incidents in the past 12 months. Cisco’s announcements further its commitment to developing these capabilities for customers through ecosystem partnerships and for the broader community through open-source security models and tooling.

“The cybersecurity threat landscape has never been more dynamic and complex, with adversaries constantly emboldened and enabled by AI to drive new attacks and exploits,” said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Cisco. “To fight back, understaffed security operations and IT leaders need AI power of their own. Cisco is continuing its mission to secure AI and leverage AI for security with novel open-source models and tools, new AI agents, and IoT advancements, alongside the full breadth of the Cisco Security Cloud. Together, these innovations will help level the playing field and deliver AI innovation that makes all businesses more secure.”

Cisco XDR and Splunk Security

Security teams are inundated with thousands of threat alerts daily. Cisco XDR addresses this challenge by correlating telemetry across network, endpoint, cloud, email, and more, using agentic AI to surface what matters most to organizations. Integrating several new features, Cisco XDR will deliver decisive, AI-powered responses to stop attacks faster than ever. The new Instant Attack Verification integrates data from the Splunk platform, endpoints, networks, threat intelligence, and more – and uses agentic AI to automatically create and execute tailored investigation plans. This feature swiftly investigates, confirms threats, and enables security teams to automate responses with confidence to stop attacks. New automated XDR Forensics capabilities provide deeper visibility into endpoint activity, increasing the accuracy of investigations. Additionally, a new XDR Storyboard clearly visualizes complex attacks, empowering security teams to understand threats in seconds and decisively respond faster.

To further help organizations strengthen their digital resilience, Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) and Splunk SOAR 6.4 enhance defenses against known and unknown threats for better visibility, accurate detections, and integrated and automated workflows that increase efficiency. Organizations that combine Splunk ES and SOAR with Cisco XDR will gain enhanced network visibility and detection to expedite investigations and stay ahead of threats. With this breadth of solutions, Cisco helps organizations build a SOC of the future that harnesses agentic AI to identify threats faster, accelerate resolutions, and realize massive productivity gains. Splunk SOAR 6.4 is generally available, and Splunk Enterprise Security 8.1 will be available in June.

“Cisco XDR has fundamentally changed how we deliver security services, and we're eager to leverage the enhancements in our vision for the future,” said Omar Zarabi, CEO, Port53. “Building on its network-centric and open XDR approach, the emphasis on clarity, decisiveness, and speed – delivered through Instant Attack Verification powered by agentic AI, and automated XDR Forensics – will further streamline our operations and deliver even better results for our customers.”

"Cisco XDR aims to address key challenges in the SOC with its focus on 'Clear Verdict. Decisive Action. AI Speed,'" said Frank Dickson, Group Vice President, Security & Trust, IDC. "The combination of Instant Attack Verification, XDR Storyboard visualizations, and automated XDR Forensics offers a streamlined approach to threat management. The effectiveness of these features in improving security outcomes will depend on real-world deployment and integration within existing security ecosystems."

Cisco managing AI security risks

Building on the recent launch of AI Defense, Cisco is continuing its commitment to help customers tackle the growing challenges of managing AI security risks. Cisco announced a new integration as part of a deepened relationship with ServiceNow to enable confident and secure AI adoption at scale. The first integration will bring together Cisco AI Defense with ServiceNow SecOps to provide more holistic AI risk management and governance. 

Cisco also introduced Foundation AI, a team of leading AI and security experts that joined through the Robust Intelligence acquisition, focused on developing cutting-edge technology to address the fundamental security issues of the AI era. The Foundation AI team today released the first open-source reasoning model built specifically for enhancing security applications. They will also debut novel benchmarks to evaluate cybersecurity models on real-world security use cases, plus additional tools and building blocks for teams to leverage in adapting the models. These models and tools will encourage collaboration among first-class security experts and machine learning engineers, while delivering essential infrastructure that cybersecurity teams can immediately leverage.

Additionally, a new set of AI Supply Chain Risk Management security controls will help customers secure AI application artifacts. Even before deploying models in production, enterprises are exposed to security vulnerabilities, like malware in AI model files and poisoned data sets, that are downloadable from open-source repositories. By combining AI model threat assessment and detection with comprehensive network enforcement, enterprises can confidently accelerate their AI adoption and innovation.