Cisco Boosts Web-based Usage Reporting, Adds E-mail DLP, Encryption Service

Cisco Systems is enhancing its hosted security services with extensive business intelligence reporting for Internet usage and email DLP/encryption. The Web reporting piece, Web Intelligence Reporting (WIRe), upgrades the existing Web security and Web filtering services from ScanSafe, which was acquired by Cisco in October 2009.

Cisco Ironport E-mail Data Loss Prevention and Encryption is a additional paid option for its Hosted E-mail Security service. The DLP-encryption service is an alternative to the hybrid model that Cisco and other E-mail security vendors have been offering, where companies outsource inbound E-mail antispam/antivirus filtering and retain appliance-based control of outbound messaging to keep sensitive data in-house. Cisco says a number of its customers have been asking the hosted option. "We initially thought the hybrid model would be sufficient," said Amanda Holdan, product manager for E-mail Security. "But customers said they want DLP and encryption in cloud, so they can get the full benefits of cloud without losing control and visibility." Holdan said that the DLP service meets the needs of organizations using hosted mailboxes as well as those with on-premise E-mail.

Policy-based encryption is one of a number of options available for DLP. Companies can also choose to passively monitor activity, alert admins, quarantine and block messages, or alert end users and give them the option to allow, stop or review possible policy violations. The new Web reporting engine, WIRe, is designed to provide a lot of Internet-usage data quickly in a detailed, customizable dashboard. "Before, we could get basic reports about where users were going," said Paul Moorman, IT strategist for Miamisburg, Ohio-based printing paper manufacturer NewPage Corp., a ScanSafe customer which has been beta testing WIRe. "Now we can report on a huge amount of data."  Moorman WIRe's speed is a sea-change over previous ScanSafe reporting. "One of biggest things is you can start seeing what's going on with a five-minute lag," he said. "Before, it was 'yesterday.' I can see what people are doing in near-real time.

The dashboard provides high-level information on things like most visited sites to drilling down on individual user activity. There are 50 canned reports and 75 attributes on which to perform custom queries. You can add or remove columns to view the information you are interestedin, or convert it into a rotating pie chart.

Cisco says the demand for Internet-specific business intelligence reflects the changing corporate environment. "There's a general move to business intelligence tools, to have better understanding of risk and get insight into different aspects of business," said Garry Scott, ScanSafe product marketing manager. "You get a global view of data quicker and make fact-based decisions."NewPage's Moorman says he sees this kind of intelligence becoming increasingly important as his company moves towards to Web-based services and applications that rely less and less on IT support and budget. The company's strategy is to move to Internet-based connectivity at a tenth of the cost of MPLS, he said, especially when one considers high-bandwidth applications, such as streaming video.

This movement towards "95 percent of what we are doing in the future will be based on the Internet" in NewPage's distributed business--7,000 employees in some 30 sites--underscored the necessity for cloud-based security and Web filtering and now fast, flexible Internet usage information for everything from policy enforcement and security to bandwidth management, troubleshooting and business decision-making. "We need to know what's going on with our ever-changing use of internet," he said. "It's Samazing as you watch 5,000 users do what they do to actually see how critical the  Internet is to our day-day to day business."
 
Cisco Ironport E-mail Data Loss Prevention starts at about $1 per user/month. Cisco Ironport E-mail Encryption starts at $2.50 per user/month. ScanSafe Web Security and Web Filtering services start at $2-$3 per user/month, including WIRe reporting.