Cisco Live Orlando: our key takeaways

Cybersecurity was on everybody’s mind at one of this year’s most anticipated tech conferences, Cisco Live Orlando.

In between rounds of our Spot the Threat game, we talked to over 1,500 attendees at our booth last week and noticed some common themes that are worth sharing. Read this Cisco Live Orlando recap and explore BlueCat’s key takeaways below.

Security networking professionals opening up about vulnerabilities

Right off the bat, many attendees that stopped by our booth were eager to express their questions and concerns about where their organization should go next with their cybersecurity plans. One particularly recurrent topic of conversation was strengthening security structures. And, in our case, plugging a security hole that’s gone unmonitored for far too long: DNS.

Above: Playing Spot the Threat with Cisco Live Orlando attendees.

There were a lot of questions regarding DNS security and how to use DNS data for cybersecurity. This sparked curiosity about how BlueCat Edge stands amongst its peers. Booth visitors were often taken aback when they learned Edge could be deployed with an unlimited number of service points at no additional cost and with very little impact on their environment.

Many organizations rely on network firewalls, secure web gateways, and solutions like Cisco Umbrella. So, it’s safe to say they were pleased to hear about the ways in which Edge adds capabilities beyond what these tools can do, particularly when it comes to reducing the attack surface with internal DNS visibility and control.

Another key subject that arose from a number of network professionals in attendance was the growing awareness that there are IoT devices that just aren’t being secured, resulting in increased security risks. The attitude seems to be that if a device is connected to the network, then it can pose as a potential entry point for malicious activity. Booth visitors were quite interested to hear about the role of DNS in keeping the network safe from breaches on these devices.

Despite it being the gatekeeper to a network’s most sensitive devices and data, DNS is still being overlooked, unmonitored, and under-leveraged . When using BlueCat Edge, for example, DNS allows policies to be implemented quickly and automatically, not only providing an additional layer of security but saving teams valuable time as well.

No universal stance on cloud

The great cloud divide was an interesting point of note. Many attendees mentioned they were looking into migrating IT infrastructure to the cloud. Some were aggressively and proactively headed in that direction while others felt they were being forced and didn’t know where they were going to begin.

We had plenty of guidance to provide in this area as well, as DNS is a crucial component for any organization heading towards a cloud-based infrastructure.

There’s no such thing as a silver umbrella

As mentioned above, when organizations are looking into obtaining a well-rounded security infrastructure, they’re appreciating that there isn’t one perfect all-encompassing solution. This is why a complementary approach is so appealing. A company happily using Cisco Umbrella’s north-south (external) protection can benefit from our BlueCat and Cisco Umbrella integration and leverage that visibility with a lateral, east-west (internal) view of DNS queries and data movement provided by BlueCat Edge. Also, to get even more out of DNS, BlueCat Edge reduces the attack surface via policy control and reduces the time to remediation with complete DNS visibility, both internal and external.

Overall, we had a great experience at Cisco Live Orlando. We were excited to have so many engaging conversations and meet so many people, both from networking and security, to talk about how DNS can be used for so much more than it is today.