Cisco Secure Access Resource Connector

My main use case for Cisco Secure Access is monitoring north to south security traffic, primarily for web filtering.

A specific example of how I use Cisco Secure Access for web filtering in my environment is that we found several regional hospitals coming back through our WAN. They were going back out of a misdirected route and actually getting the wrong licenses, which could have cost us a lot of money. We were able to secure that down and monitor it to make sure they weren't spoofing the wrong IP.

Cisco Secure Access has positively impacted my organization by enabling us to give the customer more confidence, and we are able to assess threats and upgrades faster.

I measure that impact by noting that we have a weekly CAB and security meeting for changes, and we don't have to put as much detail in there because they trust that the security system has actually picked up the information for them. It's definitely a streamlined process now due to the trust.

Our administrative workflow has changed when configuring unified access rules across both web security and private application access within the single console as we've been able to streamline it a bit more and use profiles. We are moving into using templates, so if it's a breach or a future threat or, at the moment, what's happening with AI is the constant patching. We're creating templates and using previous updates as reference points, which makes the CAB and approval process a lot faster.

The differences I have observed in operational overhead and policy consistency when applying automated rules for threat detection compared to manual rule definition are that the ability to see the patterns has been beneficial, rather than relying purely on manual processes where we have to create the patterns. The ability for it to actually find things that we didn't even realize could be a threat has been a real help.

The best features Cisco Secure Access offers include visualization of the entire network in one portal. Before that, we used to have to have a few different devices and track multiple screens.

Having everything visualized in one portal has changed my day-to-day work by allowing us to see patterns and emerging issues rather than waiting for something to actually break. Sometimes two small issues in different regions can obviously lead to a larger future problem.

Regarding Cisco Secure Access's AI capabilities, I think its governance and security are very good. It's locked down, and we only use it on other Cisco products, so it's definitely secure.

Regarding Cisco Secure Access's AI capabilities, I think its accuracy and reliability of output have been fine as we haven't had any false positives or misdiagnoses. It hasn't mistaken safe traffic as bad, but at the same point, we don't know what we don't know. We don't know if it's been missing other traffic that was bad, so it's hard to say in that metric.

If I had to imagine areas for improvement, I think possibly the widgets could be made a bit smoother or easier. The ability to move what's on the dashboard would help, as some things seem to go on quite easily, but others, you can't always get the same two icons or monitoring graphs up at the same time. A little bit more customization with the dashboards would be handy.

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for one year.

Cisco Secure Access is stable, as we haven't had any issues so far.

The scalability of Cisco Secure Access is great, with the ability to move in site by site and add them as we've gone has proven that we won't have any issues moving forward in the future. I am confident that as we add other sites and other hospitals come into the alliance, we will be able to add them very easily into the module.

The customer support has been effective, as we've been using TAC for a lot of things, and it's been successful and quick to respond.

I would rate the customer support a nine on a scale of one to ten.

I previously used a different solution, specifically Webroot and Zscaler combined to manage web filtering and general RMM and remote access. Both were quite expensive and outdated, so we looked to get something that had more visibility and a secure access into our other Cisco environment.

Cisco Secure Access is deployed in my organization using a hybrid cloud. We have a server, a catalyst, and a few other devices there, so we're trying to utilize that to not have all of it cloud, which gives us a localized database to back it up.

We managed the transition phase from legacy full-tunnel VPN architectures to zero-trust application segmentation during our rollout of Cisco Secure Access using some partitioning. TAC worked with us for a lot of the testing, and we basically ran both at the same time in a VRF and VLAN environment. This way, we could move the buildings over from one to the other, maintaining fallback redundancy with our previous security method. Eventually, once they were all on the new method, we could leave it a couple of months, and then we turned the other one off, so now we're purely on Cisco security.

I have seen a return on investment, sharing that it saves us a lot of time and saves us on other infrastructure. We will probably move it full cloud eventually, saving on server maintenance and uploading and repairing hardware. The licensing doesn't save us any money, but the hardware will.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was very positive as the setup cost was really good since we could run it in unison with our other one, and we weren't in a rush to get it done. Licensing is always a sore point with Cisco, which is probably the biggest contention, being ongoing licensing versus competitors.

Before choosing Cisco Secure Access, I evaluated other options as we are a public health organization and have to explore multiple vendors, but I'm not across the tender process, so I'm not sure what other ones they looked at. I know they considered renewing Webroot, but I'm not sure what else they looked at.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Cisco Secure Access an eight so far.

I choose eight because I haven't used it quite enough yet, so there could be things I'm missing, and the same way that I might not be utilizing it as much as I can. Widgets and some customization, as mentioned, I feel will change in the future, so it's not perfect yet, but it's good.

Our administrators haven't utilized AI-assisted policy creation and risk identification capabilities in Cisco Secure Access in any live assistance yet, but the team has been playing around with it to create predictive processes and spot patterns on the network. I don't think they pushed that to the live system for us yet as AI is still very new to us.

My advice to others looking into using Cisco Secure Access is to look into the licensing and the scalability of how you want to plan it. The biggest thing would be to have the network ready to deploy it before it goes in because if your network's a mess, it's always going to be hard to add a new system.

The use case for my company involves accessing all of our networking equipment.

The feature I value the most in Cisco Secure Access is the high security level, which is the primary benefit.

The benefit to my company is mainly preventing unwanted access into the systems.

I have not noticed any difference in operational overhead or policy consistency.

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for about five years.

I find the product to be stable with no downtime.

Cisco Secure Access does scale with the growing needs of my organization.

I did not transition from a VPN; I am still currently using a VPN as well.

I was part of the deployment originally.

It took a little while to deploy. I have 12 venues, so it was mainly a month or so to get it all deployed to the right locations.

I think it was average; it was not easy because it was something new, but it was not terrible.

I would say the ROI is peace of mind, which is probably a big one. We know something that works, we use Meraki products and other Cisco products, and we have not skipped a beat yet, so we have not had to look for other options for the last five years.

I think the pricing and licensing are expensive but worth it.

From what we have seen, it does its job, and we have not had any issues with it.

I do not use Cisco Secure Access with AI.

I would rate the product an eight on a scale of one to ten, with one being worst and ten being best.

My main use case for Cisco Secure Access is end-user web protection.

A specific example of how I use Cisco Secure Access for end-user web protection is by blocking end-user access to generative AI websites automatically unless they are approved.

My security teams do not use Cisco Secure Access for applying data loss prevention controls to unmanaged cloud applications; they block access to applications instead.

The best features Cisco Secure Access offers include the ability to show authorized providers for the web traffic, the ability for users to self-serve requests for misattributed blocks and ask for access to be granted, and the ability to tie into our corporate identity system.

Cisco Secure Access has positively impacted my organization by saving a lot of time from having to do manual categorization for websites, rolling that out, and protecting all the clients on an automatic basis.

We were able to automatically block dozens of people from using a slightly different URL of a service which we were engaged with, which did not have the corporate controls and they were using the public access one. By doing this, we prevented at least half a dozen people from using the incorrect service.

The administrative workflow has changed when configuring unified access rules across both web security and private application access within the single console by making it simpler and providing a one-stop shop for viewing those policies.

I have noticed that it saves time with the automatic detection, and then the team can triage the specific policies compared to defining those rules manually.

I think it would be better if the feature was integrated directly into the platform so we could see the request and serve the access directly in there, including adding an exemption to an existing product group.

The self-service request could have an ability integrated into the platform for handling that rather than just the email notifications, such as when somebody reports a false positive, it can be flagged as a ticket inside the platform.

I chose eight because generally it works quite well, but there are some features that are a little limiting, and some of it would require advanced knowledge of the product to work significantly well. Also, by default, some of the blocking automatically blocks access to itself, so it needs to handle conflicting services for its own services, highlighting those in advance.

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for about 12 months.

We managed the transition phase from legacy full-tunnel VPN architectures to Zero Trust application segmentation during our rollout of Cisco Secure Access by already using the Cisco product for that, which made it more seamless with the Cisco VPN product. We transitioned some users on a group-by-group basis to the product versus the VPN tunnel.

I have not seen a return on investment because it was a capability enhancement, not a savings project.

I would rate Cisco Secure Access an eight on a scale of one to ten.

I would advise others looking into using Cisco Secure Access to ensure the team has adequate training for its usage and end-user communication.

Our main use case for Cisco Secure Access centers around core perimeter security and reliable branch connectivity. On the local network side, we keep our architecture straightforward by separating traffic into standard inside and outside zones.

We rely heavily on NAT rules and access control lists to manage exactly what goes in and out, ensuring our internal environment stays protected. Beyond that, the platform acts as our primary connectivity hub. We run encrypted site-to-site VPN tunnels across multiple branch offices, which allows us to securely route whatever corporate traffic we need between locations. It essentially serves as a rock-solid firewall that handles all our multi-site traffic. For our remote workforce, we secure work-from-home users by having them connect straight back to the central firewall using Cisco Secure Client (which we used to call AnyConnect

For a financial organization like ours, Cisco Secure Access is a critical component of our security fabric. The biggest impact has been the sheer reliability of our network defense. By utilizing its advanced firewall rules and intrusion prevention capabilities, we are able to proactively mitigate risks and protect sensitive financial data.

The real-world proof comes during our annual penetration testing. Despite aggressive attempts by outside testers to find a way in, our Cisco policies and strict IP blocking rules consistently hold the line. It removes the constant anxiety of external cyber threats, giving our team the stability and confidence to focus on our day-to-day work.

In our day-to-day operations, the standout features of Cisco Secure Access are its robust VPN capabilities, flexible NAT configuration, inside-outside zone segmentation, and high availability.

Out of all of these, we rely most heavily on the site-to-site IPsec tunnels and remote access features. They are the backbone of our daily workflow. Our branch traffic moves through those IPsec tunnels constantly, and our remote employees seamlessly connect from home using the Cisco Secure Client (AnyConnect). It just works, making the management of a distributed workforce incredibly straightforward.

Behind the scenes, the high availability and resilience features give us a dependable backup system so we never have to worry about downtime. While we configured our core NAT and routing rules during the initial deployment, the firewall continues to handle that traffic effortlessly. Additionally, as a Next-Gen Firewall, Cisco gives us the flexibility to manage the environment via the classic CLI—which is our preferred method—while still providing a modern dashboard interface as an excellent alternative option

If we look at competitors like Palo Alto and Fortinet, there are a couple of architectural features they handle a bit more smoothly.

For example, Palo Alto uses what they call a 'Single-Pass' system. This means the firewall looks at a packet just once to check the application, user, and security threats all at the same time. Cisco, on the other hand, still uses a two-step process where it runs the core firewall rules first and then passes the traffic over to a separate engine (Snort) for deep inspection. When your network gets really busy with heavy inspection turned on, Cisco's two-step approach can sometimes slow down throughput.

Another handy feature is Fortinet's 'Central NAT.' It lets you manage all your NAT rules in one dedicated, completely separate screen away from your main security policies. Since we do a lot of NATing across our different branches, having a clean, standalone NAT table like Fortinet does would make troubleshooting and scaling our rules a whole lot easier than Cisco's setup, where NAT is tightly tied to specific interfaces and objects

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for five more years.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Cisco Secure Access a ten.

I rate Cisco Secure Access a ten because of its legacy, and everyone knows about Cisco. Cisco is a traditional way of providing support to the network. A lot of people, seventy to eighty percent in my circle, work on Cisco infrastructure. I would tell anyone researching Cisco Secure Access that Cisco is a trusted and established choice for network infrastructure.