Cisco, a leader in security and networking, has unveiled the new Cisco Hypershield, a pioneering security architecture designed to comprehensively protect the applications, devices, and data in public and private data centers, as well as in the cloud. This announcement, made on April 18, 2024, from its headquarters in San Jose, California, marks a turning point in securing critical infrastructures in the era of artificial intelligence.
The Cisco Hypershield, built with artificial intelligence at its core, offers unparalleled protection wherever customers need it, from data centers to physical locations such as factories or medical imaging rooms. This solution is not just a security barrier but a true network that enables security controls to be placed where they are needed.
The Hypershield architecture from Cisco was originally developed for large-scale public clouds and is now adapted for enterprise IT teams of all sizes. It functions as a fabric that allows security implementation in every application service in the data center, each Kubernetes cluster in the public cloud, and every container and virtual machine.
One of the standout innovations of Hypershield is its ability to block application exploits within minutes and effectively halt the lateral movement of threats. The solution is based on three fundamental pillars:
– AI-Native: Autonomous and predictive from its design, Hypershield self-manages once user trust is gained, enabling a hyper-distributed approach at scale.
– Cloud-Native: Built on open-source eBPF, the default mechanism to connect and protect cloud-native workloads in hyper-scale clouds.
– Hyper-Distributed: Reinvents traditional network security by integrating advanced security controls in servers and the network infrastructure itself.
The collaboration between Cisco and NVIDIA has been crucial, utilizing NVIDIA’s Morpheus AI cybersecurity framework for accelerated detection of network anomalies and NVIDIA NIM microservices to empower personalized AI security assistants for companies. This complements Hypershield with robust security from the cloud to the edge.
With Cisco’s recent acquisition of Splunk, customers will gain unparalleled visibility and insights across their digital footprint for unrivaled security protection. Hypershield is set to be generally available in August 2024, promising a new era in cybersecurity where defense against distributed exploits and autonomous segmentation are key to safeguarding against an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape.
In the words of Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco, “Hypershield is one of the most significant security innovations in our history. With our data advantage and strength in security, infrastructure, and observability platforms, we are uniquely positioned to help our customers harness the power of AI.”
This launch not only reflects Cisco’s ongoing commitment to security innovation but also sets a new standard in how businesses can protect their most critical assets in an AI-driven world.