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VMware unveils new security capabilities

VMware announced new capabilities that deliver strong lateral security across multi-cloud environments so that customers can see, and stop, more threats. At the RSA Conference 2023, VMware unveiled enhanced features for its suite of security solutions to address the increasing sophistication and scale of cyberattacks.

These enhancements include:

• DPU-based acceleration using SmartNICs for accelerated VMware NSX performance.

• VMware Carbon Black Workload and Cloud Configuration for security that’s designed for cloud-native architecture.

• An enhanced Firewall Service offering to bring NSX Advanced Threat Protection capabilities to VMware SD-WAN edge appliances, for simplified operations at the enterprise branch.

• New SASE collaborations with Lookout and the Symantec Enterprise Division of Broadcom to help organisations simplify the transformation of their networking and security architecture.

• VMware Secure App IX for more secure application connectivity across applications and clouds.

• VMware Workspace ONE updates for phishing and content protection, secure access, and patch management.

“As the cyber threat landscape evolves, our customers require their infrastructure to play a more active role in protecting their enterprise,” said Sumit Dhawan, President of VMware. “VMware is committed to driving innovation in infrastructure, delivering richer protection against threats of today and tomorrow.”

Strengthening lateral security for multi-cloud

Over recent months, VMware made a series of announcements highlighting DPU-based acceleration for VMware NSX. Previously only available as tech preview, but now with general availability in VMware NSX 4.1, customers can leverage DPU-based acceleration using SmartNICs. This implementation allows customers to run NSX networking and security services on DPUs, providing accelerated NSX networking and security performance for applications that need high throughput, low latency connectivity, and security.

Applications are the lifeline for many businesses and, as such, security plays an integral role. Advanced load balancers provide a great vantage point to deploy multi-layer application security. For example, web application firewall, bot management, L7 DDoS protection and API protection have visibility across all application traffic and reduce security solution fragmentation.

VMware announced new enhancements to VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer (ALB) to help customers deploy application security faster, at scale and consistently across all apps and hybrid multi-clouds. VMware NSX ALB also provides a single elastic load balancing solution done entirely in software to simplify app delivery and security. In addition, VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Pulse service now includes live threat intelligence feed, a unified central dashboard that provides a single pane of glass view, the flexibility to build custom dashboards with extensive API support, and the ability to seamlessly interact with all cloud-enabled NSX Advanced Load Balancers.

Securing multi-cloud workloads

The introduction of VMware Carbon Black Workload and Cloud Configuration helps to address this need by delivering security designed for cloud-native architecture, therefore enabling customers to view security as a continuous process across a workload’s lifecycle. By bringing together the best of VMware Carbon Black Workload and VMware Aria Automation for Secure Clouds, VMware delivers deeper context, powered by VMware Contexa to analyse threats, for better visibility on workload posture, stronger compliance, operational ease with fewer false positives and automated workflows, and reduced complexity.

A new feature for VMware Carbon Black Workload provides an effortless way for organisations to evaluate CIS compliance and understand hardening status of the compute infrastructure in workload environments from the VMware Carbon Black Cloud console. Bringing an in-house benchmarking tool into VMware Carbon Black Workload allows for more flexibility for customers.

Enhanced Edge Firewall

VMware also unveiled its enhanced Firewall Service offering, bringing NSX Advanced Threat Protection capabilities to VMware SD-WAN edge appliances, thereby further strengthening the comprehensive VMware Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) offering. As with all other VMware SASE services, this offering will be integrated into the VMware SASE Orchestrator for simplified operations and obviates the need for separate security management.

By combining the NSX Advanced Threat Protection with the VMware SD-WAN Edge platforms, customers will be able to confidently eliminate legacy firewalls at the branch without sacrificing security; benefiting from simplified network and security operations, all while taking advantage of VMware’s investment in threat intelligence. Managed from the cloud, along with VMware SD-WAN, Cloud Web Security, Edge Network Intelligence for AIOps, and the SD-WAN Client for remote access, the enhanced Firewall Service offering helps further cement VMware’s leadership in the SASE market with a cloud-native, cloud-delivered SASE offering.

Security everywhere for work from anywhere

Innovations to Workspace ONE spanning phishing and content protection, secure access, and patch management that will better enable organisations to secure their hybrid workforce. Mobile phishing campaigns targeting businesses have increased in number and impact over the past two years. VMware Workspace ONE Mobile Threat Defence helps address the risk of threat actors sidestepping security controls – including corporate profiles on personal devices – by integrating phishing and content protection with the Workspace ONE platform.

With Mobile Threat Defence, customers will be better able to protect against potential phishing activity across email, SMS, general web content, messaging and social apps. Phishing and content protection is applied to all traffic, both external and internal, using a unique integration with Workspace ONE Tunnel. The conflict between phishing and content protection solutions and VPNs is eliminated by consolidating phishing and content protection, and secure access within Tunnel.

When employees have the flexibility to work from any location on any device, IT teams must navigate the complex balance of securing apps and data ubiquitously across any user. VMware Workspace ONE Tunnel will enable secure access without device management on all major operating systems including iOS and Linux, in addition to Android, macOS, and Windows. Organisations can use Tunnel on unmanaged devices to limit access to specific applications as opposed to exposing full networks, layer on additional authentication by leveraging MFA with SAML 2.0, and start the journey to zero trust with Intelligence driven analytics. Workspace ONE Tunnel for unmanaged devices is included in most Workspace ONE editions.

Find out more at www.vmware.com

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