In at this time’s dynamic menace panorama, securing the digital entrance traces is paramount. At Cisco, with greater than 326 million emails incoming every quarter, we confronted the identical problem many organizations do: the way to defend in opposition to refined electronic mail threats whereas sustaining person productiveness. Our reply was a daring, layered safety strategy, powered by AI-driven options like Electronic mail Risk Protection and the superior analytics of Splunk. Right here’s how we did it, and what we discovered.
The rising menace panorama
Electronic mail: It’s the one main assault vector for safety breaches for companies throughout the globe. In 2023, the FBI reported $2.9 billion of enterprise losses attributed to electronic mail cyberattacks within the US, an alarming enhance of over 805% since 2016. Since 2022, electronic mail ransomware incidents are up 18%. These looming threats develop day by day and underscore the crucial want for a sturdy, multi-layered electronic mail safety technique.
Whereas native electronic mail filters present a baseline stage of safety, they’re inadequate in at this time’s advanced menace surroundings. In Cisco IT, we acknowledged this hole and commenced constructing a plan to reinforce our defenses.
Nonetheless, as we had been crafting a plan, a brand new drawback rose in precedence. Our executives had been annoyed with inboxes filled with spam, advertising, and muddle. A fast session with Cisco Talos confirmed our plan, and we got down to improve our front-line electronic mail defenses — and shortly.
Placing our plan into motion
We leverage many options throughout Cisco’s safety portfolio to maintain us digitally resilient. However we knew that bringing the items along with the AI-driven capabilities of Cisco Electronic mail Risk Protection and Splunk would give us an unparalleled benefit: deeply built-in, layered defenses that scale back gaps, enhance safety of customers and gadgets, and safe entry to purposes. Over the previous decade, we now have carried out a layered strategy to guard our customers on any machine, anyplace they join, leveraging:
- Cisco XDR, which acts as a bridge between our safety purposes. It unifies our safety insights and correlates information throughout a number of domains.
- Cisco Safe Malware Analytics, which determines if incoming information include malware by isolating and opening them on a digital machine, then analyzing system impacts. This powers extra knowledgeable menace detection.
- Cisco Safe Endpoint, which protects our endpoints by figuring out and blocking information containing malware, together with details about who might have opened and/or shared these information.
- Cisco Safe Endpoint Analytics, which supplies endpoint machine visibility, discovering endpoint threats earlier than they’re an issue together with day-zero malware, harmful person conduct, information exfiltration, and many others. It sees what purposes or Software program as a Service (SaaS) are in use, makes use of forensics for incident response, and beneficial properties visibility to machine sorts and working programs on the community.
- Cisco Umbrella, which provides information and insights about particular domains, enabling us to dam these with poor reputations.
- Cisco Endpoint Safety Analytics Constructed on Splunk (CESA) with Cisco AnyConnect Community Visibility Module (NVM), which feeds us wealthy person conduct information for electronic mail menace investigations. The NVM is the one know-how for cellular gadgets that creates IPFIX information (IP Circulation Data Export). It plugs into CESA, which delivers all the required Splunk analytics software program needed to research NVM telemetry.
And in Might 2024, dealing with more and more advanced threats, we deployed Cisco Safe Electronic mail Risk Protection to mitigate threats in actual time. This platform enlists 90+ AI language fashions (LLM) detectors to mechanically detect electronic mail menaces, then it proactively takes the needed subsequent steps to guard the enterprise. This innovation saves us 1000’s of hours of manually sorting, learning, and gauging intent of emails, with a lot of room for human error. As dangerous actors more and more utilize AI, Electronic mail Risk Protection ranges the taking part in area for us.
The Electronic mail Risk Protection impression report provides full visibility into AI-tracked threats, displaying developments over time in addition to additional insights and analytics.
For Cisco IT, integrating Electronic mail Risk Protection was seamless, taking solely a matter of days.In truth, since deployment day, we’ve acquired zero complaints from the enterprise and 0 unfavourable impression on our staff’ expertise. With Electronic mail Risk Protection on prime of our present layers of electronic mail safety, worker mailboxes now not should deal with enterprise electronic mail compromise (BEC) the place dangerous actors impersonate trusted sources to steal cash from companies, phishing, or different threats. From malware to advertising spam, we are able to shortly determine and remediate every kind of undesirable mail, and do with it as we see match organizationally, whether or not it’s transferring it to the junk folder or blocking it altogether.
Elevating incident response with Splunk’s superior analytics
Even with our entrance traces being well-protected by our sturdy layered defenses, our groups wanted extra to remain forward of dangerous actors. In April 2025, our incident response workforce built-in Splunk into our operations, giving us entry to a number of the most modern safety developments in the marketplace.
With Splunk Assault Analyzer, Cisco now permits automated menace evaluation and digital forensics for credential phishing and malware. Its proprietary know-how extracts and analyzes malicious content material hidden in textual content, photographs, macro supply code, web site content material, and extra. This automation considerably improves our workforce’s operational effectivity, saving analysts’ time and enhancing the flexibility of our workforce to analyze advanced phishing threats with higher velocity and accuracy.
Quantifiable impression: Attaining resilience at scale
For Cisco, our layered strategy is constructed to frustrate the attacker, not the person. In relation to attackers, we’ve had lots. Throughout a typical quarter, Cisco mailboxes collectively obtain greater than 326 million inbound emails. For us, “one in one million” isn’t ok with regards to safety. Our unified portfolio stops threats of their tracks.
Let’s break down the impression of our strategy over a typical quarter:
- 41,000,000 (12.57%) emails blocked for having poor IP reputations
- 23,000,000 (7.05%) emails blocked for DMARC failures (Area-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance)
- 6,800,000 emails blocked for spam
- 49,000 emails blocked for having poor area reputations
- 1,940 emails blocked for holding viruses
- 840 emails blocked for holding malware
- 70,000 further emails confirmed threats blocked by Electronic mail Risk Protection’s LLM detectors
- Hundreds extra emails blocked for different numerous causes
This stage of visibility, integration, and automation is unmatched available in the market. If you’re coping with numerous customers, workplaces, and a mixture of managed and unmanaged gadgets, there’s no various to a layered complete, platform-based strategy. Our technique successfully closes gaps within the assault floor to make our programs as well-defended as potential.
For IT and safety groups our journey provides crucial classes:
A layered protection is non-negotiable: Counting on single-point options is inadequate. A complete, built-in portfolio is important.
AI is a power multiplier: AI-driven options like Cisco Safe Electronic mail Risk Protection considerably improve menace detection and scale back guide overhead, even leveling the taking part in area in opposition to AI-powered assaults.
Automation and analytics are key to effectivity: Options like Splunk Assault Analyzer automate crucial processes, releasing up invaluable safety workforce sources and enhancing incident response.
Integration is paramount: The true energy comes from seamlessly connecting safety instruments, making certain information correlation and unified insights throughout your surroundings.
Trying forward: Persevering with to construct a future-proofed office
We’re not performed constructing but. Cisco’s integration of AI, Splunk, and electronic mail safety represents a paradigm shift in how organizations can strategy safety and office innovation. By combining cutting-edge know-how with a unified imaginative and prescient for the way they’ll work extra successfully collectively, we’re not solely defending our entrance traces but in addition setting a brand new commonplace for resilience and flexibility within the fashionable office. We’re bringing know-how collectively to attain issues which have by no means been potential earlier than.
Constructing on this basis, our incident response workforce is within the early phases of deploying Splunk Enterprise Safety as a part of our evolving electronic mail safety technique. Whereas this integration remains to be in progress, it displays our ongoing dedication to strengthening detection, investigation, and response capabilities throughout the environment. As we proceed to discover and develop sensible use circumstances, we anticipate that Splunk Enterprise Safety will develop into a key element in our general strategy to figuring out and mitigating email-based threats — additional future-proofing our safety posture for what’s forward.
Because the menace panorama evolves, so does Cisco. Taking these learnings, we push ahead, persevering with to innovate, combine, and strengthen our defenses to guard what issues most.
Study extra:
Share:
