Cisco Umbrella: Keeping you dry during the storm of cyber threats

21st May 2020 | In Cloud

The world has changed in many ways over the past few months and will take a long time to go back to what we would call normal. Home working has become the norm and our long and slow daily commute has been replaced with a mad dash for our home office five minutes before we are due to start our working day.

Home working is currently the norm and many organisations are questioning whether the use of expensive offices is the right way to operate. The technology available today has ensured that businesses that do not rely on the provision of manpower services for revenue have been able to operate in a fairly normal manner.

The use of VPN technology by remote users has ensured that they are able to connect to business resources and operate as if they are in the office. Video conferencing tools have been used to great effect to keep teams communicating and collaborating on projects which helps keep businesses operating.

However, there is a worrying side to all this that is not related to the reason we are all now working from home. Security of home workers has never been more relevant, or more important as they need access to corporate resources and are an obvious target for the cyber-criminal.

In the ‘old world’ the main approach to security was to deploy Next Generation Firewalls within an environment to protect resources against attack from the ‘outside’. User traffic was scanned, and threats identified as it originated within the business environment and the firewalls had visibility of it.

Now in the new world, firewalls no longer have visibility to user traffic. Obviously, a VPN goes some of the way to protect business systems and data but what about when the users are using their laptops or tablets for other online services? A user may connect to the corporate environment to use certain applications and the connection is secured using standard VPN technologies. But what about when they browse non-corporate websites? How are they protected against phishing and Malware? What can be done to protect them?

Umbrella from Cisco protects users from attack by utilising technology built on OpenDNS that has been evolving since 2006 and is the most mature DNS protection solution available today. Hijacking users’ traffic and sending them to fake sites that are used as a front for phishing or malware attacks has increased as users have become more remote. Umbrella offers an easy to deploy solution that protects users from attack by utilizing a cloud database that records suspicious sites and blocks access. As cyber criminals change their sites, or new ones are added, the central Umbrella database is updated to ensure that all users are protected.

Umbrella provides systems administrators a simple to use dashboard that identifies the number of protected users, the identified threats and more importantly the protection provided. Umbrella is simple to install and licence so users can be protected quickly and easily no matter where they are physically located.

Paul Bonner, Head of Technical, Hardware

Get in touch If you would like a free 14-day trial of Umbrella, or would like to discuss security concerns, simply contact your account manager on 01285 771600.

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