Elastica, a cloud access security provider, and Cisco signed a reseller agreement that adds Elastica’s cloud app security solution to Cisco’s threat-centric security portfolio. The deal bolsters Cisco’s security offering with a cloud access security broker (CASB) portfolio that addresses security and compliance risks associated with cloud application and services adoption.
While Cisco gains access to cloud security technology that complements and enhances its existing security offerings, the partnership gives Elastica, an emerging company in the CASB space, greater customer reach. The agreement includes Elastica’s complete product portfolio, including the CloudSOC platform, security apps (Audit, Detect, Protect and Investigate), and Securlet family of stand-alone APIs targeting specific software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps, including Google Drive, Box, Dropbox and Office 365.
“Enterprises are adopting more and more cloud apps, and knowingly or unknowingly there has been a big blind spot in terms of visibility and control in what’s happening in those cloud apps,” said Eric Andrews, vice president of marketing at Elastica. “The company is focused on providing that visibility and control of all activity in the cloud. It’s particularly important now that the adoption of cloud has picked up.”
The Elastica offering is all about understanding what an enterprise’s users are doing in those apps by providing increased visibility and control to understand how the data is being shared, what’s getting shared outside the company, who is using which apps, and whether there are any security concerns or threats to the data stored in the apps, explained Andrews.
Elastica’s Security Apps deployed on the CloudSOC platform deliver a complete range of cloud application security—including shadow IT risk monitoring and control; visibility and control for network and Web security; real-time detection of intrusions and threats; protection against intrusions and compliance violations; and investigation capabilities.
“Clearly, customers are moving to the cloud, and the adoption of cloud apps points to that direction,” said Ben Monroe, senior product marketing manager, Cisco Security Business Group.
“The way the Elastica solution works maps to what we call the ‘attack continuum’—looking at the before, during and after of a threat; hardening and enforcing policy; being able to block and detect in real time; and having a solution for remediation.”
The Elastica suite—the CloudSOC and different apps—enhances the overall Cisco security portfolio, added Monroe. Any of those offerings—Cloud Web Security (CWS), the Cisco ASA firewall and the Web Security Appliance (WSA)—produce the logs that feed into the Elastica platform and enhance our ability to protect against threats by extending the visibility and control that we can provide into the cloud apps.”
As examples, Elastica’s IT risk monitoring and controls product works with data from Cisco CWS, WSA and Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services product lines to provide an analysis for each discovered cloud app. The Elastica API-based Securlets complement Cisco CWS, WSA and ASA security solutions by adding visibility and controls to enhance network and Web security. It delivers continuous risk assessment of cloud use, content classification, quarantining and remediation of exposure risks.
In addition, Elastica’s cloud app learning and event extraction technology, StreamIQ, performs monitoring of risky transactions inside cloud apps used by enterprise employees.
Gina Roos, a Channel Insider contributor, focuses on technology and the channel.