Cisco has announced the acquisition of Splunk for a whopping USD$28 billion. Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk marks a pivotal moment in data management and security. With the ink now dry on the deal, Cisco is equipped to change the way organizations harness data to navigate the digital landscape.
In today’s digital age, connectivity and security are paramount. Companies need to seamlessly integrate their people, applications, and devices while safeguarding against cybersecurity threats and downtime. With Splunk now in its arsenal, Cisco is set to deliver an unmatched level of visibility and insights across the entire digital footprint of organizations.
Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO of Cisco, expressed excitement about the acquisition, emphasizing the transformative potential it holds. By leveraging data in innovative ways, Cisco aims to empower organizations to make data-driven decisions and safeguard their operations in the age of artificial intelligence.
Gary Steele, Executive Vice President of Splunk, echoed Robbins’ sentiment, highlighting the unparalleled value that Cisco will bring to customers worldwide with Splunk’s innovative technologies. The coming together of Cisco and Splunk will provide comprehensive visibility and insights, enabling organizations to enhance resilience and tackle the most complex challenges head-on.
With the convergence of Cisco’s network expertise and Splunk’s cutting-edge solutions, customers can expect a slew of benefits across security, observability, networking, and AI. Together, Cisco and Splunk will offer a holistic suite of solutions that streamline operations, enhance security, and drive business value.
Industry experts have lauded the merger, recognizing its potential to unlock new levels of business value. Stephen Elliot from IDC emphasized the transformative nature of the combination, while Julie Sweet from Accenture expressed optimism about the collaboration’s potential to drive innovation for clients.
Looking ahead, customers can anticipate a wave of new product innovations as Cisco integrates Splunk’s capabilities into its portfolio. These innovations will be showcased at upcoming events, including Cisco Live and .conf24, providing customers with a glimpse into the future of data management and security.
In terms of the transaction details, Cisco acquired Splunk for $157 per share in cash, amounting to approximately USD$28 billion in equity value. The transaction is expected to drive revenue growth and margin expansion for Cisco, positioning the company for long-term success in the evolving digital landscape.
With the completion of the acquisition, Cisco and Splunk are ready to embark on a new chapter of innovation and collaboration. Together, they are poised to redefine the standards of data management and security, empowering organizations to thrive in the digital age.
Cisco is bringing a whole load of AI features to its cloud collaboration platform, Webex. Its new strategy which focuses on using AI to enhance real-time audio and video communications is touted to change the way companies collaborate in a world that is embracing a hybrid model of work. Unlike traditional AI applications limited to text or documents, Cisco’s Webex leverages AI for audio and video to tackle everyday challenges, ensuring crystal-clear calls and meetings even with low bandwidth.
The Webex AI Assistant
In the largest way, Cisco is introducing AI as a digital personal assistant to help augment and boost productivity when using Webex. The Webex AI Assistant is a powerful tool designed to boost productivity and accuracy. This new AI Assistant will be integrated across the entire Webex portfolio, which includes the Webex Suite, Cisco Collaboration devices, Webex Contact Center, Webex Connect, and Webex Control Hub. This approach is already being tested by renowned companies like McLaren Racing and Team DSM.
The Webex AI Assistant will offer a range of capabilities that empower users and reduce IT workload. These features include:
Change Message Tone, which provides suggestions to improve messaging tone, format, and phrasing.
Suggested Responses for contact centre agents responding to customers on digital channels.
Meeting Summaries to help users catch up on missed meetings with easily digestible summaries.
Message Summaries to recap unread messages or spaces.
Slido Topic Summaries for virtual and hybrid events to navigate trending topics.
According to Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Security and Collaboration, “We’re at the tipping point of a new era of hybrid work, with AI holding the key to helping us bridge the gap and enable us all to work and communicate to our full potential.”
AI For Better Quality Conferencing with Webex’s Real-Time Media Models (RMMs), AI Codec & Super Resolution
Cisco is also bringing Real-Time Media Models (RMMs) to Webex. These models will provide rich context for human interactions during meetings. They will enhance audio and video quality, enabling features like people and object recognition, and action analytics such as movement and gestures. RMMs enable audio and video channels to provide context for text-based capabilities like meeting summaries and highlights.
For example, in the future, Webex could recognize when a participant leaves a meeting and capture meeting notes to bring them up to speed upon their return.
In addition, Cisco is also introducing AI Codecs to resolve audio quality challenges caused by network impairments. Whether you’re in a car, a hotel room, or a rural area with poor connectivity, this AI Codec aims to deliver crystal-clear audio by ensuring that the audio quality remains consistent regardless of network conditions. The AI Codecs also include speech enhancement functions like noise removal and bandwidth extension.
Webex employs machine learning techniques to enhance video quality through Super Resolution. Super Resolution, in terms that AMD and NVIDIA use is a super sampling of graphical data to create an image that is larger than the resolution intended and then downsampling it to meet the intended resolution. With technologies like DLSS and FidelityFX, this technology is able to deliver more detail even at lower resolutions. In Cisco’s case, it will be used to deliver high-definition video quality, regardless of varying bandwidth conditions.
Responsible AI Framework & Rollout
Cisco adheres to a Responsible AI Framework that prioritizes transparency, fairness, accountability, privacy, security, and reliability. The Webex AI strategy and AI Assistant capabilities will align with this framework.
These innovations are set to roll out at various stages in 2023. Cisco is committed to delivering the best AI experience through a combination of best-of-breed models, both commercial and open source, with a focus on security, privacy, and human rights.
Cisco has announced that it is discontinuing its HyperFlex hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) product family, effective March 12, 2024. The company cited evolving customer needs and market dynamics as the reason for the decision.
Cisco HyperFlex HCI combines data centre elements, including storage, compute, networking, and management, into a single unified system. It has been a popular choice for organizations of all sizes, offering a simplified and scalable way to manage their IT infrastructure.
However, in recent years, there has been an increasing number of companies shifting towards hybrid and multi-cloud computing which requires more flexible or scalable solutions. This has led to a decline in demand for traditional on-premises HCI solutions, such as Cisco HyperFlex.
Source: Cisco
In response to this trend, Cisco has decided to focus its efforts on developing and supporting hybrid and multi-cloud solutions. The company has recently announced a strategic partnership with Nutanix to offer a complete hyperconverged solution for IT modernization and business transformation.
Cisco has assured existing HyperFlex customers that they will continue to provide support for the product for the next five years. The company is also offering platform migration support and services to help customers transition to other HCI solutions, such as Nutanix. Cisco also offers a Take Back and Recycle program that allows its customers to sustainably remove and dispose of obsolete products.
“Things will never be the same again.” is one of the most common sayings we’ve been hearing since we started trying to live our normal again. To be honest, that statement can’t be more true. The ways in which we work, communicate and interact have changed drastically since the pandemic. One of the things that have changed drastically is how we work. Many of us are now working completely remotely while others are working in hybrid environments. Businesses have been forced to adapt to new “normals” that are here to stay. It’s become even more imperative for companies to have the correct tools at their disposal; one of which is Cisco’s Webex Suite.
Webex itself is Cisco’s answer to Google Meets, Microsoft Teams and Zoom. It’s a video conferencing platform that enables collaboration. It’s steadily been getting more bells and whistles as Cisco continues its development. The latest feature that’s coming to Webex is a purpose-built AI that is poised to change how we work and collaborate even further. Webex’s new AI is bringing more optimisations to over 10 million users. A bulk of which allow better collaboration through bandwidth savings, video clarity and automation.
Better Clarity, Privacy and a New Cinematic Experience with Webex AI
One of the more significant updates is the implementation of Webex’s Super Resolution which allows users to have crystal clear video even with lower internet bandwidths. It doesn’t just stop there though, Webex Super Resolution is able to upscale and enhance images from lower-resolution cameras to deliver high-definition video. It can even intelligently “relight” your image for the best clarity. Under harsh lighting environments, the AI will underexpose the image to compensate for the lighting and provide clearer video; while under dim lighting, the AI compensates with higher exposure and brightness. Even if you’re stepping away, Webex AI will automatically blur your video, mute your mic and put up a “be right back” message. These settings are magically removed when you’re back in front of the camera.
It’s not all just about the Webex app either. Cisco is also imbuing Cisco Room OS to enhance AI and video features on Cisco Collaboration devices. These devices will be able to provide cinematic meeting experiences. What exactly is a “cinematic meeting experience”? Well, imagine a meeting where the camera intelligently zooms in to and follows the person speaking. Cisco is enabling this with voice and facial recognition technology. They’re even taking it a step further by ensuring the presenter is always in the frame and at the best angle.
IT admins can even take video conferencing and enforce company privacy even further by creating virtual boundaries for collaboration spaces in the office. Employees jumping on a Webex call in designated meeting zones will be viewed in a more condensed frame. This framing removes any blank space, keeping it out of view. What’s more, only individuals involved in the meeting will be included in the meeting. This is particularly important in open-space offices or if you’re working in a busy space.
Revolutionising Customer Support Experiences with Webex Connect
Webex is also one of the most used platforms when it comes to customer service. It comes as no surprise that Cisco has also zoomed in to the call centre to improve and revolutionise the experience there. Through its platform – Webex Connect – Cisco is bringing even more features to help businesses address customer needs and meet their expectations.
Cisco is starting at the very beginning when it comes to revolutionising these experiences. Webex Connect allows businesses to orchestrate and automate end-to-end customer journeys with their low code flow builder. Using this capability, businesses can automate basic functions like validation. Put simply, if a customer calls in for an email or phone validation, Webex Connect can, with the correct coding, provide the validation code without the need to pass the inquiry to an agent.
Speaking of agents, Webex Connect is also getting the AI treatment but it takes things to a new level. The platform will be able to provide coaching in real time for agents. With Agent Answers, human agents will be able to get insights and knowledge base articles surfaced as they interact with the customer. Agent Answers will also be constantly improved with customer interaction data that is constantly fed to it. This includes self-service and automated interactions.
In addition, agents can also be provided with AI-powered chat summaries. These summaries eliminate the need for agents to go through lengthy chat histories to serve customers better. These summaries will include previously recommended solutions and a history of the issues reported. These insights will be provided in an easily digested and understood fashion to allow agents to react more efficiently.
Actionable Insights for Business Development
Webex Connect isn’t just about the agent either. Business analysts will be able to get valuable insights from the platform too. Using Topic Analysis, Webex Contact Center will surface reasons why customers are calling in. It will aggregate call transcript data and model trends in an easy-to-understand form. Using this data, businesses will be able to react and adapt to address customer needs better.
This feature isn’t just a one-off thing either. Thanks to the nature of AI, Topic Analysis will continually improve and get smarter with time. It will be able to learn and improve while businesses adapt more proactively.
Continually Improving Throughout 2023
Cisco’s Webex platform will be continually improving with more AI integrations and features throughout 2023. The features mentioned in this article will be making their way to Webex in the near future.
Cisco is one of the world’s leading companies when it comes to networking technology. The company provides networking technology for a significant percentage of companies and it wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that a good percentage of the internet goes through Cisco technology. That said, being one of the forerunners, they’ve had to help companies and countries develop the skills needed to successfully take advantage of networking technology.
With networking and connectivity taking centre stage with the advent of the internet and more publicly now with the “metaverse”, there’s an even more pressing need for graduates and even those in the workforce to equip themselves with the skills and know-how for the rapidly changing tech landscape. Realising this, Cisco has pledged to empower 141,000 Malaysians with digital skills over the next 10 years. That’s over 14,000 Malaysians equipped annually to help further the digital aspirations of the country.
Mobilising Cisco’s Networking Academy to Upskill & Empower
Cisco isn’t starting at ground zero when it comes to upskilling and empowering Malaysians. In fact, the company has about 23 years of experience in upskilling and training people across the globe in Cisco’s Net Academy. The Networking Academy started back in 1997 and is now proudly boasting over 3 million students annually 25 years later. The academy is not just a simple top-down experience, in fact, instructors and students build veritable relationships which see them succeed and support each other even after their time at the academy.
(Source; Cisco) Cisco Networking Academy Global Impact Report.
Malaysia has the unique honour of being one of the first countries to see the rollout of Cisco’s Networking Academy in 1999. Having been in Malaysia for over 20 years, it comes as no surprise that the company is looking to empower 141,000 Malaysians over the next 10 years. Cisco has built partnerships with key stakeholders such as the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) to achieve this pledge.
The Networking Academy is already working towards achieving this goal. Its curriculum has already been embedded in institutions of higher learning such as Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), University Malaysia Pahang, and Universiti Malaya. These partnerships are simply the tip of the iceberg when it comes to empowering Malaysians with the necessary skills. These universities have not only incorporated certain modules into their courses but also offer Cisco’s Networking Academy syllabus as electives that are continually being updated to address the rapidly evolving landscape.
Equipping People Now for the Jobs of Tomorrow
Our current job landscape is quickly evolving. In fact, it’s expected that by 2025, a total of 85 million jobs would have been displaced with 97 million new jobs that we’ve never seen before emerging in that same period. These new jobs will emerge in the wake of new technologies like 5G and the deployment of AI across industries. However, these jobs also bring with them a skills gap that will only widen without support from the industry.
Cisco Networking Academy Impact Report for Malaysia
In the wake of the pandemic, there has been an increase in the demand for cybersecurity specialists as companies begin to move to a more hybrid style of work. As the shift to working from home or working from anywhere becomes more mainstream, the need for companies to build in networking and access resilience and security is rapidly increasing. In addition, as 5G increases the number of connected individuals, the threat landscape will increase exponentially. These trends are being used and predicted to help shape Cisco’s Networking Academy’s curriculum to ensure that it is forward-looking and adaptive.
Cisco’s Networking Academy doesn’t just upskill the students, it regularly updates and upskills the instructors. This allows the academy to adapt rapidly and also expand its offerings to address current and emerging trends in the industry. As a matter of fact, Cisco’s Networking Academy has offerings for networking technologies, Python, Linux and more over the past few years as demand for skills increased with the introduction of new technologies like Kubernetes and 5G.
Source: Cisco
“Bridging Malaysia’s skills to job gap to create inclusive access for its population to participate in the evolving digital landscape is critical as the country strengthens its digital economy. At Cisco, we have always believed in the power of public-private partnerships to unlock the power of digitalization. This is why Networking Academy has been in Malaysia for 23 years where we have trained over 129,000 students since inception with 419 active instructors today. Our pledge to equip 141,000 Malaysians with relevant digital skills is a testament to the potential we see in the country and our commitment to work with our ecosystem partners to empower the Malaysian digital economy.”
These demands and trends are not merely predictive. Cisco also monitors the industry demands. The increase in demand for certain skill sets by corporations and more in the industry are indicative of a shift in the skills gap.
Gearing for Digital Malaysia with 141,000 Additional Skill Technologists
With over 23 years of success and an impressive track record, Cisco’s Networking Academy is looking to empower Malaysians to take the next step into a digital Malaysia. Cisco has already invested USD4.8 Billion in the upskilling of people since the inception of the Networking Academy. It even has the great honour of being a platform for equality with over 26% of students being females and 21% of instructors being female. Malaysia boasts an impressive 38% of women in Cisco’s Networking Academy.
(L-R) Guy Diedrich, Senior Vice President & Global Innovation Officer for Cisco; Hana Raja, Managing Director for Cisco in Malaysia; and Dr Yusnani Mohd Yussoff, Associate Professor, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam
The upskilling of Malaysian workers will need to continue as the nation continues on its path to becoming a digital economy. With the pledge of 141,000 trained in Cisco’s Networking Academy alone, it won’t be an impossibility. You can even take the first step by registering at Cisco’s Networking Academy website.
Cybersecurity has come leaps and bounds since we first started exploring the internet. Technology and the knowledge surrounding it have also progressed significantly. With that, so too has our understanding of the need to secure and protect our connections.
Cisco has recently issued an advisory to customers to upgrade their routers. The advisory comes in light of a vulnerability which allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code in a series of routers. This would cause a Denial of Service condition which would prevent access to the internet and connected servers.
Source: Cisco
The vulnerability affects relatively dated business routers – specifically, the Cisco Small Business RV110W, RV130, RV130W, and RV215W Routers. Malicious actors are able to access root privileges through the web management interface of the routers. While Cisco is aware of the exploit, it seems like the company has no plans to patch the vulnerability in these dated devices. Of course, the company has announced the end-of-life status in an advisory released back in 2019.
The only silver lining for those planning to continue using the aforementioned routers is that the vulnerability can only be exploited if the web management interface is enabled. This can be determined by checking the status within the settings of the router. That said, it is definitely advisable to update to a more current router for better coverage and connectivity if not anything else.
CISO stands for Chief Information Security Officer. From that description alone, we believe you would know what this report is about then. If you still do not; Cisco did a study for the cyber security field for 2019 by interviewing about 2,000 Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) or security professionals all over Asia Pacific. You would be glad to know also that about 10% of the participants in the study are Malaysian. While that does not change the nature of the study, the sample size should mean that there is some accuracy in the general scheme of things.
Source: Cisco
The Big Numbers
The big numbers for Malaysia are 44% of threat alerts are investigated, 46% of the recognised threats are neutralised, and 27% have faced downtime of longer than 24 hours due to a cyber security breach or threat. There are some good things about these numbers, and some bad things too. So it is not all roses and rainbows for Malaysia’s cyber security industry in 2019.
The first of the numbers are the investigated threats. This does not mean alerts. Receiving cyber threat alerts and investigating them are two different things. You can have threat alerts of more than 10,000 and still not investigate any of them for a number of reasons. Still, investigated threats are escalated from reported threats.
According to the Malaysian numbers, 44% of threats reported in Malaysia are investigated in 2019. That is 4% more than 2018, Malaysian CISOs are busier by 4% last year 2019 than in 2018 then. That could be due to the raised number of serious threats. It could also mean that awareness to cyber threats have increased in Malaysia. So while it does sound like Malaysia is being attacked more, it also means that Malaysians are now better prepared for cyber threats or breaches.
Out of all the verified threats, nearly half of them were remediated at 46%. That number is higher than plenty of Malaysia’s neighbours and the average in Asia Pacific at 43%. The other half? Maybe those cases could be a little tougher. Still, that also means that Malaysians are capable of handling cyber security issues. This number is also an increase from 2018.
The next big number is 27% of companies declared a downtime of more than 24 hours when they get attacked. This is a large increase from 2018’s 9%. While this may not seem like a good thing, there is a bigger story that than. For one, this also means that Malaysia is plenty more digital in 2019 than 2018. This increase could also be because of the increased threat detection in 2019. The result was also a higher resolution to each identified threat.
More Vendors, More Problems?
It seems only yesterday that having multiple layers of security is a good thing. Like plenty of things, throwing money at something should solve a problem. Those were the days.
There used to be a time when organisations like banks would recommend having about 10 security vendors to layer security in all parts of their organisation. In some sense, it works; but it is very expensive, and very inconvenient for users. That is not yet considering the fact that having multiple vendors and that many layers of security increases complexity in controlling and managing the solutions.
The new way to think about cyber security then is to keep the number of vendors down to as little as required. This reduces not just complexity of workflow and simplifies management, but also increases the efficiency of managing cyber threats.
From the Malaysian numbers though, this seems to be a slightly new concept with more than 35% of the responding organisations having more than 10 vendors. While this is slightly lower than 2018’s 39%, there is still a need to reduce that number even lower. Malaysians realise that too, with 90% of respondents finding it hard to manage that many vendors at the same time. Some experts suggests that having five to six vendors at a time is enough for a holistic cybersecurity system to be in place for any organisation.
The Problem With Cybersecurity Malaysia
There are still looming problems for a country that is going through a major digital transformation though. While the progress toward a digital Malaysia and Industry 4.0 has been a steady one in the region, there are still fundamental problems that might hinder progress or create holes in the cyber armours that the CISOs have put up or tried to put up. One of these enemies to cyber security is budget.
There are times where companies might have a large constraint over budget. For most SMEs and startups, it is quite understandable. They would probably need to pool their money in things that they might find more useful to them in the shorter run. That is not saying that it is not a problem for them or the general cyber security state in Malaysia. It is still a problem, but an inevitable one.
There are cases with large organisations that has restricted their budgets to cyber security because they do not yet see the value in cybersecurity. This becomes a major issue for CISOs. Despite the consensus that more money may not mean more protection, cyber security still needs a pool of money to work with. If not enough money is being poured into the department, not much can be done. With less protection, larger organisations are more vulnerable and thus, might lose even more money.
The biggest problem with cyber security, not just in Malaysia but most of the world, is always personnel; both the lack of skilled workers and awareness of the main issue. Thing is though, CISOs all over Malaysia are also making efforts to reduce this number down with plenty of awareness and skill training of personnel all over the company. The number of skilled personnel in terms of cyber security in Malaysia is also growing continuously, which also means that it is a problem that can be solved in time.
So What do We do in 2020?
2020 is meant to be the year of progress, of near complete digital revolution. It is the year of 5G and WiFi 6, the year where data is meant to be all covering and seamless. That potentially means more cyber security risks with bigger data bandwidth and less latency. It gives software less time to react. Which means that a DDoS attack could be a big thing in 2020.
Still, awareness is key to combating cyber attacks. With the availability of data in today’s world, having a VPN no longer cuts it. The only benefit of VPN these days is to ensure that whatever that you have accessed is not tracked by your data or service provider. You are still at risk of a cyber attack even via VPN.
The fact that you have multiple devices that are connected to the internet and each other is already a threat on their own. At every point and turn, you really have to be aware of what you are accessing on the internet and what you are vulnerable to. That allows you to be more alert on things like phishing attacks, malicious links, email scams and what not. That should be enough as the first layer of defense against common cyber attacks, maybe even big ones like ransomware and what not.
If you are planning on getting an Anti-Virus software protection on your PC, consider spending a little more than what you would pay for a generic Anti-Virus program. You might want to look into find an Anti-Virus program that covers the whole lot from spyware, adware, to even malware. That way, you are ensured of a holistic protection, at least on your own end.
