Cisco Unveils AI-Powered Security Innovations at RSAC 2025

At RSAC 2025, Cisco announces bevy of security announcements to leverage its strength in networking - SiliconANGLE

At RSAC 2025, Cisco announces bevy of security announcements to leverage its strength in networking It's nearing the end of April and for the security industry, this means it's time for the RSAC Conference. Over the next week or so, about 50,000 people will flock to the Moscone Center to take in the latest and greatest in cyber. One company that has retooled much of its portfolio over the past year is Cisco Systems Inc. and it's used RSAC to launch many new products. At the 2023 conference, the company introduced its extended detection and response solution and last year it added enhancements to Identity Intelligence with Duo, more capabilities with Cisco Hypershield and Splunk-Cisco integrations. At RSAC 2025, Cisco continued its security binging with the following: Here are details on each: Under Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel (pictured), Cisco has been focused on bringing together the historically siloed security and infrastructure domains with a goal of providing better security outcomes while lower operating and capital expenses. It's an ambitious goal, but the company is looking for AI to help achieve this. Adding to the complexity is that AI workloads introduce a whole new set of security challenges, particularly for the mid-market. The value of XDR is that it can look across the entire attack surface - from network to endpoint to email and web but then identify the lateral movement of an attack, in near real time. The Cisco enhancements give it the ability to bring XDR to the mid-market, which hasn't had access to it before. XDR 2.0 uses AI is to close the gap between the bazillion alerts companies get to find the truly malicious ones and then take advantage of the automated response capabilities. Security teams can use agentic artificial intelligence to build a tailored investigation plan and then execute it. There is so much data being generated today that people can no longer analyze in manually, but AI can. In fact, one could look at AI as the missing piece to realize the promise of XDR. Security for AI is also a component of Cisco's Cyber Vision IoT and operational technology capabilities enhancements. Cyber Vision takes the asset inventory of the IoT endpoints, checks against any of the vulnerabilities that might be in place, organizes all these assets into groups and then the secure firewall is able to communicate seamlessly with this collection of IoT devises to enforce segmentation as well as firewall policies. As Cisco brings more security into the fabric of the network with a Hybrid Mesh Firewall, it can read and understand feedback from Cyber Vision to make sure that it is automating least privileged controls to devices on a factory floor, as well as to users, whether they're remote or in a branch office. For Cisco customers, Security Cloud Control is the interface used to define policies and the intent behind them, and then enforce everywhere, where the application and workloads may be running -- on firewall variants, on secure workload, on Hypershield, as well as secure access. Historically, Cisco has had good security tools, but the management was scattered across different systems. Under Patel, Tom Gillis and Raj Chopra, Cisco has done a much better job of simplify workflows to complement the products. AI supply chain and risk management are other areas in which Cisco is enhancing security. AI is being infused into every corporate application and business process and that creates new risks. As an example, downloading a model from a source such as Hugging Face creates risk, as the exposed models can be infected with malware. Cisco has worked on all the artifacts around AI, not just the usage of AI, but how they are being built and modeled. Cisco has visibility into the entire supply chain around AI and can enforce the right kind of controls, be it on the endpoint of the developer or the usage of that particular application. Cisco also announced a product and go-to-market partnership with ServiceNow to bring together Cisco's AI risk and governance portfolio within ServiceNow in a hybrid model. Joint customers will realize the value of the partnership as they start to adopt AI more holistically. This spans a wide range of the use cases, whether it is the visibility of the application being used, the models, and the kinds of attacks they may be vulnerable to, including real-time protection. For Cisco, success in security is critical to accelerating growth. Security is a massive, highly fragmented market and even moderate success will move the needle on Cisco growth and stock price. Tying security to Cisco's dominate share position in networking gives it a unique approach that is highly defensible. Historically, Cisco has treated the domains as individual silos and created complexity for its customers. Much of the innovation in security for AI and AI for security has come by bringing these two worlds together - something long overdue for Cisco and its customers.

Cisco Introduces New Security Innovations for the AI Era | AIM

The company introduced new capabilities in Cisco XDR and Splunk Security, a deeper partnership with ServiceNow, and the launch of Foundation AI. At the RSA Conference 2025, on Tuesday, Cisco announced key innovations and partnerships to help security teams face the rising challenges of the AI era. The company introduced new capabilities in Cisco XDR and Splunk Security, a deeper partnership with ServiceNow, and the launch of Foundation AI. According to Cisco's upcoming 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index, 86% of organisations worldwide reported experiencing AI-related security incidents in the past year. "To fight back, understaffed security operations and IT leaders need AI power of their own," Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and chief product officer at Cisco said. The company's XDR has introduced new features designed to help security teams quickly detect and respond to threats. The new Instant Attack Verification tool uses agentic AI to automatically create and execute investigation plans by combining data from Splunk, networks, endpoints, and threat intelligence. It allows teams to confirm and counter attacks with greater confidence and speed. Other enhancements include automated XDR Forensics, which enhances visibility into endpoint activity, and the XDR Storyboard, a feature that visualises complex attacks to help teams react more quickly. In addition, Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) and Splunk SOAR 6.4 are being enhanced to provide improved visibility, enhanced detections, and automated workflows, thereby improving operational efficiency. Splunk SOAR 6.4 is now available, while Splunk Enterprise Security 8.1 is scheduled for release in June. Expanding on its AI Defense efforts, Cisco announced a new partnership with ServiceNow to combine Cisco AI Defense with ServiceNow SecOps, enabling organisations to adopt AI securely and manage AI risks more effectively. Cisco also launched Foundation AI, a team born from its acquisition of Robust Intelligence. The team introduced the first open-source reasoning model specifically built for security applications. Alongside the model, they will release novel benchmarks and tools designed to enhance AI resilience in cybersecurity environments. The company introduced new AI Supply Chain Risk Management controls to secure AI application artefacts. These controls aim to detect and block threats such as malware hidden in AI model files or poisoned datasets from public repositories, ensuring companies can adopt AI technologies safely. Recognising the growing threats to industrial environments, Cisco announced upgrades to its Industrial Threat Defense solution. Integrations with Cisco Vulnerability Management, Secure Firewall, and Splunk Asset and Risk Intelligence will help companies prioritise OT risks, automate network segmentation, and unify IT and OT security operations.

Cisco Continues to Drive Innovation to Reimagine Security for the AI Era

New Cisco innovations address the complexities for security professionals to embrace the AI era in today's dynamic threat landscape Cisco XDR and Splunk Security advancements simplify threat detection and response with cutting edge agentic AI Cisco and ServiceNow deepen partnership to ensure customers can efficiently adopt and scale AI securely Launch of Foundation AI democratizes AI security with novel open-source tools, including the first reasoning model built to enhance security applications Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today made several transformative innovation and partnership announcements that will help security professionals secure and harness the power of AI. An increasingly sophisticated threat landscape combined with an expanding talent shortage means the need has never been greater for machine scale security and response. According to Cisco's upcoming 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index, companies worldwide underestimate the complexities of securing AI, with 86% saying their organizations have experienced AI-related security incidents in the past 12 months. Cisco's announcements further its commitment to developing these capabilities for customers through ecosystem partnerships and for the broader community through open-source security models and tooling. "The cybersecurity threat landscape has never been more dynamic and complex, with adversaries constantly emboldened and enabled by AI to drive new attacks and exploits," said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Cisco. "To fight back, understaffed security operations and IT leaders need AI power of their own. Cisco is continuing its mission to secure AI and leverage AI for security with novel open-source models and tools, new AI agents, and IoT advancements, alongside the full breadth of the Cisco Security Cloud. Together, these innovations will help level the playing field and deliver AI innovation that makes all businesses more secure." Improved Threat Detection and Response with Cisco XDR and Splunk Security Security teams are inundated with thousands of threat alerts daily. Cisco XDR addresses this challenge by correlating telemetry across network, endpoint, cloud, email, and more, using agentic AI to surface what matters most to organizations. Integrating several new features, Cisco XDR will deliver decisive, AI-powered responses to stop attacks faster than ever. The new Instant Attack Verification integrates data from the Splunk platform, endpoints, networks, threat intelligence, and more - and uses agentic AI to automatically create and execute tailored investigation plans. This feature swiftly investigates, confirms threats, and enables security teams to automate responses with confidence to stop attacks. New automated XDR Forensics capabilities provide deeper visibility into endpoint activity, increasing the accuracy of investigations. Additionally, a new XDR Storyboard clearly visualizes complex attacks, empowering security teams to understand threats in seconds and decisively respond faster. To further help organizations strengthen their digital resilience, Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) and Splunk SOAR 6.4 enhance defenses against known and unknown threats for better visibility, accurate detections, and integrated and automated workflows that increase efficiency. Organizations that combine Splunk ES and SOAR with Cisco XDR will gain enhanced network visibility and detection to expedite investigations and stay ahead of threats. With this breadth of solutions, Cisco helps organizations build a SOC of the future that harnesses agentic AI to identify threats faster, accelerate resolutions, and realize massive productivity gains. Splunk SOAR 6.4 is generally available, and Splunk Enterprise Security 8.1 will be available in June. "Cisco XDR has fundamentally changed how we deliver security services, and we're eager to leverage the enhancements in our vision for the future," said Omar Zarabi, CEO, Port53. "Building on its network-centric and open XDR approach, the emphasis on clarity, decisiveness, and speed - delivered through Instant Attack Verification powered by agentic AI, and automated XDR Forensics - will further streamline our operations and deliver even better results for our customers." "Cisco XDR aims to address key challenges in the SOC with its focus on 'Clear Verdict. Decisive Action. AI Speed,'" said Frank Dickson, Group Vice President, Security & Trust, IDC. "The combination of Instant Attack Verification, XDR Storyboard visualizations, and automated XDR Forensics offers a streamlined approach to threat management. The effectiveness of these features in improving security outcomes will depend on real-world deployment and integration within existing security ecosystems." Security for AI and AI for Security Building on the recent launch of AI Defense, Cisco is continuing its commitment to help customers tackle the growing challenges of managing AI security risks. Cisco announced a new integration as part of a deepened relationship with ServiceNow to enable confident and secure AI adoption at scale. The first integration will bring together Cisco AI Defense with ServiceNow SecOps to provide more holistic AI risk management and governance. Cisco also introduced Foundation AI, a team of leading AI and security experts that joined through the Robust Intelligence acquisition, focused on developing cutting-edge technology to address the fundamental security issues of the AI era. The Foundation AI team today released the first open-source reasoning model built specifically for enhancing security applications. They will also debut novel benchmarks to evaluate cybersecurity models on real-world security use cases, plus additional tools and building blocks for teams to leverage in adapting the models. These models and tools will encourage collaboration among first-class security experts and machine learning engineers, while delivering essential infrastructure that cybersecurity teams can immediately leverage. Additionally, a new set of AI Supply Chain Risk Management security controls will help customers secure AI application artifacts. Even before deploying models in production, enterprises are exposed to security vulnerabilities, like malware in AI model files and poisoned data sets, that are downloadable from open-source repositories. By combining AI model threat assessment and detection with comprehensive network enforcement, enterprises can confidently accelerate their AI adoption and innovation. This includes identifying and blocking malicious AI model files before they enter the enterprise; automatically detecting and blocking AI model files with risky or restrictive open-source software licenses that pose intellectual property and compliance risks; and flagging and enforcing policies against AI models originating from prohibited suppliers. Enhanced Industrial IoT Security Solutions As industry digitization accelerates and industrial AI emerges, critical infrastructure and industrial networks are constantly exposed to cyber threats. Enhancing the Cisco Industrial Threat Defense solution and further extending IT security to industrial settings, these new integrations with Cisco Cyber Vision include: Cisco Vulnerability Management and Splunk Asset and Risk Intelligence to help prioritize OT cyber risks; Cisco Secure Firewall to help automate industrial network segmentation to better protect operations; and the Splunk OT Security add-on in Splunk ES to unify IT and OT visibility within the SOC, helping detect threats traversing domains to secure global enterprises. For more information on Cisco's new security solutions, visit cisco.com/go/security. Additional Resources: Press Release: Cisco and ServiceNow Partner to Simplify and Secure AI Adoption for Businesses at Scale Blog: Navigating the AI Cybersecurity Revolution Blog: Cisco XDR Just Changed the Game, Again Blog: Foundation AI: Building the Intelligent Future of Cybersecurity Blog: Innovative OT Security Solutions by Cisco at RSAC 2025 About Cisco Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that is revolutionizing the way organizations connect and protect in the AI era. For more than 40 years, Cisco has securely connected the world. With its industry leading AI-powered solutions and services, Cisco enables its customers, partners and communities to unlock innovation, enhance productivity and strengthen digital resilience. With purpose at its core, Cisco remains committed to creating a more connected and inclusive future for all. Discover more on The Newsroom and follow us on X at @Cisco.