As you may have heard, on October 7 2013, Cisco made a significant announcement in terms of its security offering with the acquisition of Sourcefire. Sourcefire brings industry leading security products and 700 employees that will help Cisco approach security in a brand new way. This is exciting news for our team and I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss the short term/long term impact of this acquisition and address some of the questions I’ve heard about how it will affect Cisco’s security strategy.
Immediate Impact
The immediate impact of the acquisition is significant; Cisco now provides the most comprehensive advanced threat protection portfolio. And the impact goes beyond hardware. In the past we’ve always approached security with a network centric focus. We have now made it stronger with a threat centric approach from Sourcefire backed up by its Vulnerability Research Team (VRT).
It’s also important to mention that our security portfolio has been transformed with acclaimed products and solutions, including market-leading next-generation IPS technology that has been recognized by Gartner.
Moving Forward As One
With the acquisition of Sourcefire, we’ve positioned ourselves as the only security provider in the market that is able to provide services at every stage of a security breach. The new Attack Continuum model allows us to react and protect clients before, during and after the attack. Cisco and Sourcefire together will help shape security moving forward with a visibility driven, platform based and threat focused philosophy.
We’ve discussed Sourcefire’s hardware, software and philosophical impact; however it is the game-changing aspect of this acquisition that stands out most of all. I believe the Sourcefire acquisition is a line in the sand for our security portfolio and we’ll move forward as a team that is stronger, more adaptive and versatile than the sum of its parts.
Check back soon for my next blog post where I’ll be speaking in depth about Advanced Malware Protection.
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