Cisco has launched a new security product aiming to help users protect critical systems with AI.
The security system, HyperShield, converts multiple IT assets into security enforcement points, including virtual machines and Kubernetes clusters in the public cloud, making it easier for users to stop application vulnerabilities and hackers from compromising critical systems, Cisco said.
HyperShield delivers security wherever it is needed, such as software, servers, and even network switches," said Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager, of security and collaboration, at Cisco. Simplifying management is mission critical when a user's distributed system may contain hundreds of thousands of execution points."
Automating network security tasks
HyperShield was developed using the open-source eBPF standard, which is typically used to protect hyperscale cloud computing workloads, Cisco said. Earlier this month, Cisco just acquired an industry-leading provider of enterprise eBPF products.
Cisco claims that HyperShield uses hardware acceleration provided by data processing units (DPUs) installed in network hardware to identify, analyze, and respond to anomalies detected in network traffic or application behavior. HyperShield's detection capabilities are enhanced by NVIDIA's "Morpheus" AI cybersecurity framework and its GPU and DPU accelerators.
In addition, HyperShield can test and deploy solutions on client networks in minutes and quickly modify new software vulnerabilities. This capability also extends to standard software upgrades so that standard software can be evaluated with digital twin technology before a broader rollout. In addition, HyperShield automates network segmentation.
AI-enabled cybersecurity
IT departments and hackers are now increasingly interested in how AI can be used for cybersecurity, which is why Cisco is launching HyperShield, while similar AI-enabled cybersecurity services include VMware's "Private AI" service and HP's Aruba Networking Central. Cisco claims that HyperShield leverages a specialized large-scale language model to provide stable analysis of a user's network defenses.
Patel said the development of AI solutions like HyperShield is essential in an era when the time to exploit and discover a network vulnerability can be as little as four days, and AI has the potential to reduce that time to minutes.
Opportunities and Challenges for Cisco Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity has become an increasingly important source of revenue for Cisco in recent years as the company has committed to expanding its network equipment manufacturing business. That commitment prompted the company to acquire Splunk last year for $28 billion, gaining access to Splunk's network observability software and 15,000 enterprise customers.
At the time, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins hailed the deal as an important contribution to its goal of building AI security systems. He said:- "From threat detection and response to threat prediction and prevention, we will help organizations of all sizes be more secure and resilient."
Meanwhile, Cisco itself is vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Its Cisco Duo division recently warned customers that threat actors had managed to steal the logs of third-party SMS messages that the company uses to distribute multi-factor authentication messages. While Cisco assured users that the hackers still didn't know the inner workings of the messages, sensitive information was still compromised.
Additionally, Cisco suffered a cyberattack in October 2023, when the company warned that cyber attackers had installed backdoor programs in more than 40,000 of its devices and that they had full control over the compromised devices.
