By ; Dr. Gee Rittenhouse
Senior Vice President and GM of Cisco’s Security Business
During this global health crisis, normal has been redefined. We are living through a dynamic situation that has required us to reorient our personal and professional lives in ways we never have before. Companies have had to do the same. Many have taken the extraordinary step of moving the majority, if not the entirety, of their workforces to a virtual workplace. As companies adapt to their new normal, securing this sudden exponential growth of remote workers and their devices remains a challenge.
A few weeks ago, we shared that Cisco would provide extended free licenses and expanded usage counts at no extra charge for three of our key security technologies that are designed to protect remote workers: DNS-layer security from Cisco Umbrella, zero-trust security from Duo and secure network access from AnyConnect. As a result of this, there has been a huge demand for these technologies. Cisco has supported an additional 9 million-plus users during this crisis with this rollout.
Security teams generally start by securely connecting employees to the network with the VPN, and multi-factor authentication provides an additional layer of security to customers’ remote access strategy. As security teams work to protect a larger remote workforce, Duo is seeing the number of daily authentications from VPNs increase by 157 percent. But we know that 85 percent of corporate users bypass the VPN when working remotely. So, customers are increasingly looking to DNS-layer security to secure users on and off the network, and we have seen the need for Umbrella licenses increase by 100 percent.
Through all of this, we have been listening to customers feedback on how else we can best support them. What we heard is that more than ever there is a need to protect both user-owned and company-owned devices. Based on that input, today we are extending our free security offers to also include Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) for Endpoints. This technology prevents breaches and blocks malware at the point of entry as well as detects, contains and remediates advanced threats if they evade the frontline of defense.
With this new addition, existing customers can exceed their device limit by two times to support an increase in remote workers. To take advantage of this offer, they simply install AMP for Endpoints Connectors on extra devices, and no other action is required. As with our AnyConnect, Umbrella and Duo offers, this will be available until July 1, 2020.
Our mission is to be our customers’ most trusted partner by providing effective security solutions. This current situation demands this more than ever, and we will continue to stand with our customers and partners through this challenging time.
You can learn more about our Cisco Security Remote Worker offerings and find additional resources on the Business Continuity site. If you have any questions, please contact your Cisco representative or email us at pandemicsupport@cisco.com.
