In the past two decades, networks have evolved from closed infrastructures to integrated systems that enable organizations to work more closely with employees, partners, customers, and vendors worldwide by connecting and automating business processes and applications. Today's network is the platform for business interactions across organizations and locations. At the same time, the threat environment is evolving such that the corporate perimeter is eroding, threats are increasingly difficult to detect and mitigate, and attacks are changing from broad to targeted.

Security breaches can attack a company from a wide range of sources, including the company's own networked PCs and servers. New worms and viruses also are targeting network endpoints, a situation that is of particular concern in small or branch offices with limited IT resources to combat these challenges. The resulting loss of data, regulatory or compliance repercussions for not protecting electronic assets, and lost revenue or productivity due to downtime are pushing organizations to invest in security.

This paper explains how Cisco is merging innovative network security technology with more than 20 years of routing expertise to redefine network security and provide customers with end-to-end network protection.