Fusing Security into Networks: The Next Evolution in Enterprise Protection

The challenge: security is breaking at the edges

Today's enterprise networks extend far beyond the data center. They stretch across sprawling campus networks, remote branch offices, hybrid WANs, cloud services, and increasingly complex industrial IoT (OT) environments.

This distributed footprint has unlocked enormous agility and business value, but it has also expanded the attack surface exponentially.

Attackers no longer target just your core. They strike anywhere: at the user edge, across the WAN, inside factories, or through cloud-connected apps.

Alone, traditional bolt-on security architectures-firewalls, VPNs, and siloed point tools-can't handle today's dynamic, machine-speed world. They can fall short in stopping modern threats as the network perimeter expands. These solutions can also create significant operational overhead: fragmented policies, overlapping dashboards, and complex integrations that put strain on already overburdened IT teams. By fusing security directly into the network, Cisco delivers stronger protection and radically simplifies day-to-day operations.

Modern enterprises need networks that are designed to:

• Actively defend themselves
• Stop today's hybrid threats
• Prepare for tomorrow's quantum and AI-driven risks

This is the breakthrough Cisco delivers with its AI-Ready Secure Network with security fused into the network.

The new threat landscape across enterprise domains

Across every domain, including campus, branch, WAN, and industrial edge, enterprises face five critical threat vectors:

• Compromised users and devices
  Phishing, stolen credentials, rogue devices, and unmanaged endpoints form a critical attack vector at open entry points across headquarters, branch offices, and industrial sites.
• Lateral movement across environments
  Once attackers breach one point, they spread sideways-across LANs, SD-WAN overlays, cloud interconnects, or even IT-OT links-seeking high-value targets.
• Industrial IoT and OT vulnerabilities
  Factories and critical infrastructure often run legacy or unprotected systems that attackers can hijack to disrupt operations or pivot into IT networks. Unlike end-user endpoints, which can often support agents for Zero Trust enforcement, many IoT and OT devices lack an operating system or interface to support agent-based controls. This makes it significantly harder to enforce identity, posture, and policy at the edge of industrial networks, which compounds the security challenge and requires enforcement mechanisms to be embedded into the network itself.
• Infrastructure-level attacks
  The latest evolution in threat tactics targets the infrastructure itself: switches, routers, wireless controllers. In these cases, threat actors exploit firmware, OS-level flaws, and control plane vulnerabilities to take over the network, not just move through it.
• Quantum-era cryptographic risks
  Quantum computing threatens to break today's encryption, endangering WAN tunnels, device authentication, and industrial communications.

Why bolted-on security no longer works

Traditional perimeter-based security models simply can't keep up.

Today's networks are hybrid, dynamic, decentralized, and moving at machine speed. Security should no longer be added onto a solution-it must be embedded directly into the infrastructure.

Cisco takes a distinctive approach to security: it turns the entire network into a defense system. Every router, switch, access point, and industrial device becomes an active participant in protecting the business. This architecture integrates AI, Zero-Trust principles, quantum-resilient encryption, and embedded enforcement-working together to secure the enterprise from edge to core.

How Cisco fuses security into the network and tackles each threat head-on

At Cisco, we believe the only way to stay ahead is to build security into the network itself, from the hardware and firmware to user access and traffic flow. This includes Zero Trust and post-quantum encryption across LAN and WAN.

This isn't aspirational-it's how our architecture works today.

We deliver multilayered protection that is deeply integrated into the network fabric, always on and always aware. Here's how security all comes together for network devices, network access, data, and applications.

Switches, routers, and access points, built to defend themselves

We start at the foundation-hardening the network device itself. Because if the network hardware isn't secure, nothing else matters. Our approach includes:

• Secure Boot with quantum-safe algorithms ensures every switch, router, and access point starts with verified software.
• A hardened SELinux kernel blocks privilege escalation and system-level exploits.
• Cisco Live Protect, powered by Extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) and Cisco HyperShield, delivers real-time runtime protection-stopping Zero-days like Salt Typhoon before they can take hold, and doing it without downtime.

This gives you resilient, self-defending infrastructure that stays protected-even against the unknown.

Every connection controlled-dynamic, contextual, secure

Once the network device is secure, we control what connects to it and how. Whether it's a user, device, or IoT endpoint, access is always based on identity, posture, and context. For example:

• Software-Defined Access (SDA) and Scalable Group Tags (SGTs) allow fine-grained segmentation that follows the user, not the IP address.
• Least-privilege policies are enforced the moment something connects-reducing blast radius and blocking lateral movement.
• Everything from corporate laptops to contractor tablets to IoT sensors can be onboarded and segmented in real time, with full policy control.

This is Zero Trust, operationalized in every environment.

Data defended in motion across every edge and cloud

Data is no longer static. It flows constantly across campus, branch, SD-WAN, Direct Internet Access (DIA), and multicloud environments. Cisco secures that data wherever it travels.

MACsec, WAN MACsec, and IPsec encryption with post-quantum readiness protects traffic in motion-including SD-WAN links and DIA connections-without sacrificing performance. With Cisco SD-WAN and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), segmentation, identity-based access, and continuous threat inspection are extended to the cloud edge-ensuring secure connectivity regardless of path. Integrated Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) capabilities at the WAN edge provide application-aware controls and threat prevention in-line with traffic.

This is how we stop adversaries midstream-before data is lost or systems are compromised.

Every app session protected from edge to cloud

Apps live everywhere now-SaaS, private cloud, public cloud-and users expect seamless access from any location. We ensure that access is secure, continuous, and based on real-time trust.

Delivered through Cisco's SASE architecture, Universal Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) applies continuous identity, posture, and risk assessments across every session, including over SD-WAN, Direct Internet Access, and remote connections. Whether on a managed laptop, personal device, or IoT endpoint, access apps issegmented, encrypted, and policy enforced. Post-quantum-ready encryption secures these sessions end-to-end, while policy controls ensure that only authorized users reach approved apps.

The business benefits: resilient, future-ready security

What does Cisco AI-Ready Secure Network Architecture deliver to enterprises?

• Stronger, faster threat containment. Inline enforcement, per-port firewalling, NGFWs, Cyber Vision, and SGT-driven segmentation stop threats where they appear-minimizing risk and reducing response time.
• Simpler, more efficient operations. With security embedded into infrastructure, enterprises reduce point-tool sprawl, streamline management, and improve total cost of ownership.
• Seamless user, workload, and machine experiences. Adaptive Zero-Trust access and identity-driven segmentation keep authorized connections flowing smoothly, without unnecessary latency or friction.
• Future-proof security posture. By leveraging Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), AI-powered detection, and HyperShield acceleration, Cisco customers position themselves not only to survive today's attacks but to thrive in the quantum- and AI-powered future.

Why only Cisco can deliver this vision

Cisco uniquely combines:

• An end-to-end portfolio spanning campus, branch, WAN, cloud, and industrial IoT
• Deep SDA + SGT integration for scalable, identity-based segmentation
• HyperShield-ready switches with per-port firewalling for embedded inline enforcement
• NGFW innovation built into secure routers
• Cyber Vision for deep OT asset visibility and protection
• Quantum-resilient cryptography across both device and network layers
• Global AI insights drawn from the world's largest enterprise networking footprint

Where competitors stitch together point products, Cisco delivers a unified, AI-powered, quantum-ready architecture-transforming your entire network into your most powerful security asset.

With Cisco, you're not just protecting infrastructure-you're building the foundation for faster innovation, resilient operations, and long-term competitive advantage.

A unified approach to modern threats

Attackers target every layer of the network, from firmware to endpoints. Security can't be bolted on. It must be built in. Cisco transforms the network into a unified defense system, with embedded protection, centralized policy, and self-defending infrastructure. It's a smarter, simpler way to secure what matters. Built for today and ready for what's next.

Discover how to streamline network and security, overcome key challenges, and boost IT efficiency with insights from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG's) eBook, Network and Security Convergence: Assessing SASE Progress and Best Practices. Read the eBook.

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