Cisco announced innovations to help enterprises reimagine security for the AI era. Security teams are racing to securely adopt AI throughout their enterprises, while threat actors are using AI to increase the frequency and reduce the cost of launching sophisticated cyber attacks. To overcome this unprecedented challenge, Cisco is fusing security capabilities deeper into its networking infrastructure, helping companies implement zero trust architectures, innovating on security for AI apps and models, and delivering breakthrough AI tools that improve threat detection and remediation.
Key advancements announced at Cisco Live include solutions for Hybrid Mesh Firewall and Universal Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) that simplify policy management, enhance visibility, and enable enterprises to scale securely without adding complexity to their security stack. In addition, Cisco announced further Splunk integrations that unify data across platforms, helping security teams automate tasks and respond faster to threats.
Robust network security has never been more critical, as enterprises navigate increasingly complex environments characterized by a growing number of applications, a highly-distributed and mobile workforce, and sophisticated AI-driven threats. Adopting a zero-trust security approach – including continuously verifying users, applications, and soon AI agents – is critical to preventing the lateral movement of threats across hybrid environments. Cisco is addressing these challenges with innovative solutions for AI-ready data centers and campus networks, centered on the Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall and Universal ZTNA.
Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall and Universal ZTNA work together to deliver a robust zero-trust security framework that seamlessly integrates into the network. For zero-trust segmentation, AI application protection and advanced threat protection across diverse environments, including data centers and IoT, Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall offers a distributed security fabric. This fabric includes Cisco and third-party firewalls, Cisco Hypershield and Cisco Secure Workload. For secure, identity-driven access for users and devices, regardless of location, Universal ZTNA unifies policy management and extends zero trust principles even to unmanaged devices and IoT.
Together, these solutions secure user-to-application connections and back-end interactions, simplify management through Cisco’s Security Cloud Control, and enhance observability with AI-driven insights, empowering organizations to scale securely and protect their digital assets in a complex threat landscape.
Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer, Cisco
Safety and security are the defining challenges of the AI era—and agentic AI multiplies the risk, as every new agent is both a force multiplier and a fresh attack surface. At the same time, threat actors are already leveraging AI tools to launch more sophisticated attacks than ever. To help IT and security teams fight back, Cisco is reimagining how we secure networks, protect AI apps and models, manage identity, and equip security teams with the AI tools they need to meet the moment.
John Grady, Principal Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group
The AI era demands a transformative approach to security. Organizations need distributed, identity-based, zero trust protection for applications, users, AI models and agents, supported by a unified policy framework. Cisco is in a very unique position to support this with its ability to embed advanced protections directly into the network through innovations like Hybrid Mesh Firewall and Universal Zero Trust Network Access, which safeguard AI models and applications, manage identity, and simplify policy management across distributed environments.
Chris Konrad, Vice President, Global Cyber, World Wide Technology
As AI continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace and new cybersecurity challenges emerge, it's even more important to fuse security into the very fabric of the network. Cisco is redefining security for the AI era with its latest innovations from Hybrid Mesh Firewall to Universal Zero Trust Network Access. This integrated approach will help our customers to prepare for an AI-driven future and achieve better outcomes, by protecting AI models and applications, managing identity, and providing essential tools to combat increasingly complex threats.
