Cisco Security Connector: Built for iOS 11

Cisco Blog >Security

Apple and Cisco have partnered to help businesses in every industry accelerate their mobile transformation. From seamless user experience with collaborative applications to Wi-Fi optimization, the partnership has been grounded in a tangible reality.

Apple designed iOS to be simple, intuitive, and powerful, with security built into its core. But while the device is secure, the internet is not. For example, how do you protect users from clicking on phishing links in text messages or mis-typing domains in the browser? Businesses need to protect users at all times. And like any other enterprise owned asset, there is an inherent requirement to protect the user, device, and business from unnecessary risk. Whether that's a company issued laptop or mobile phone, organizations require visibility into what is happening on the devices from a risk and compliance perspective.

Thanks to our partnership, we've developed deep visibility and control for iOS devices in the enterprise - enabling the business the expand iOS adoption in new ways and helping to remove potential roadblocks due to security or audit concerns.

Cisco Security Connector

Our new application provides organizations with the visibility and control they need the confidently accelerate deployment of mobile devices.

Visibility

Following a security incident, IT departments must investigate what happened,who it affected, and what the risk is for the company. To do this accurately, they need to build audit reports across users and devices. The Cisco Security Connector gathers all network traffic generated by iOS devices to provide a holistic view of corporate assets, allowing security teams to identify the scope and characteristics of the incident with precision and ease.

Cisco security connector will provide a full inventory of the applications installed on devices, allowing companies to pinpoint when users are installing potentially unwanted apps, such as file sharing app like Dropbox, or apps that hide user activity such as Snapchat and Onion Browser.

Control

Users are often the point of vulnerability, as highlighted in our Anatomy of an Attack video. We've addressed this by increasing the protection the user receives when tapping potentially bad links. Whether it's clicking a link in an email or text message that's part of a phishing attack, or inadvertently mistyping a URL, employees can be taken to sites that try to extract sensitive information from them or deliver malware.

We are helping businesses protect their iOS users against threats on theinternet, anywhere they travel. When the company increases its control over sites that user's access, users can be stopped from connecting to malicious destinations, so corporate data is protected. Previously this functionality was only available to users connected through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) but with Cisco Security Connector we've extended this to include Wi-Fi and cellular connections.

The Cisco Security Connector is designed for enterprise-owned iOS devices running in supervise mode, and managed by an MDM such as the Cisco Meraki Systems Manager.

Keep an eye out for the full release of the Cisco Security Connector, and if you need more information for now, here is a 1 page overview. Don't forget to check out www.cisco.com/go/apple to see everything we are doing for the latest version of iOS.