Elisity expands enterprise digital identity security platform to edge on Cisco switches

Elisity, a San Jose-based cybersecurity firm, announced it will increase the deployment options for its Cognitive Trust platform to Cisco’s network switches to create intelligent digital identity policy-enforcement endpoints at the network edge via its new Micro Edge application.

Elisity’s Cognitive Trust is an identity and behavior-based zero trust enterprise network security system that is cloud-delivered for identity-based segmentation of users, applications, and devices. It is integrated with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud. With Micro Edge, Elisity has containerized Cognitive Trust into an application that can be used on Cisco’s Catalyst 9000 series switches, or as a virtual machine on a hypervisor for Cisco Catalyst 3850 series switches.

In June 2021, Elisity raised $26 million in Series A funding to scale Cognitive Trust. Cognitive Trust is said to learn behavior to perform risk assessments as part of its goal to repeatedly iterate and optimize digital asset protection. Elisity says the behavior analysis platform can set dynamic and contextual policies for individuals, groups of people, and devices, and apply them universally across the organization. The company argues that Cognitive Trust performs better than traditional Network Access Control and East-West firewalls while also being simpler and more affordable.

James Winebrenner, CEO of Elisity, comments, “Elisity Micro Edge maximizes customer’s investments in their Cisco switches by turning them into intelligent policy enforcement points.” Winebrenner also highlights the benefit of not having to install additional hardware directly at the network’s edge, which brings down costs and time spent on maintenance.

Elisity says with the ballooning number of Internet of Things devices that will exponentially expand the attack points beyond the scope of an enterprise-managed device, that edge security will matter even more.

“Personal and IoT devices are often attacked within the first few minutes of connecting to the network, making real-time, proactive protection essential,” Winebrenner says. “Unlike other access control platforms, where traffic must be piped back to a central chokepoint or a cloud service for policy enforcement, Micro Edge enforces policy on the switch in real-time. It turns the switch into an SDP gateway and makes transactional segmentation possible, dramatically reducing risk.”

Article Topics

access management  |  behavioral analysis  |  biometrics  |  biometrics at the edge  |  Cisco  |  continuous authentication  |  cybersecurity  |  Elisity  |  enterprise  |  identity management