Symantec Enhances Cloud Security With New Access Control Tools

Symantec says its integrated set of cloud security offerings will make it possible for CIOs and CISOs to simplify their infrastructure and reduce their costs as workloads and traffic increasingly shift away from traditional environments.

Symantec has rolled out a series of product debuts, enhancements and integrations to better secure cloud and internet access in enterprise environments.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based cybersecurity vendor said its integrated set of offerings will make it possible for CIOs and CISOs to simplify their infrastructure and reduce their costs as workloads and traffic increasingly shift to the cloud and web, according to Gerry Grealish, Symantec's head of product marketing for network security.

"We want to give our channel partners the ability to tell a broader story and identify new opportunities and talk about new integrations that will make their customer's lives easier," Grealish told CRN.

[Related: Broadcom Still Interested In Making Deal To Buy Symantec: Report]

Unlike some of its platform security competitors, Grealish said Symantec doesn't make trade-offs around functionality to optimize breadth. For instance, Grealish said Symantec's software-defined perimeter tool is able to scan traffic to prevent threats, while the company's web isolation technology is able to address issues around unmanaged devices.

"Don't just gloss over things with the breadth story," Grealish advised. "Make sure you're getting the capabilities and functionality you want in each of those areas."

The enhancements include one new product, CloudSOC Mirror Gateway, which Grealish said provides secure access for unmanaged or BYOD devices that seek to connect to sanctioned cloud applications. The new product means that customers and partners will no longer have to use reverse proxies for this function, which Grealish said were operationally inefficient and didn't cover all SaaS apps.

Grealish said CloudSOC Mirror Gateway will be priced on a per user, per year basis, though he was unable to provide pricing specifics.

Symantec also infused capabilities from its February 2019 acquisition of Luminate into its Secure Access Cloud product, making it possible to scan traffic that's being uploaded from or downloaded into a corporate environment from a more public setting, according to Grealish.

Specifically, Grealish said the new capability can ensure that specific content isn't uploaded into a shared application environment, and that documents with malware in a public environment aren't brought into an organization's internal corporate environment.

Additionally, integrating Symantec's Web Security Service with Secure Access Cloud will provide visibility across all traffic rather than just web traffic, according to Grealish. The integration makes it so that users are authenticated and authorized to access different applications only if that traffic that has been affirmatively tagged by the Web Security Service, Grealish said.

Once a user and his or her devices have been authenticated, Grealish said they will benefit from stronger policies that provide for easier access and more robust orchestration. And enhancements around Symantec's email security tool will extend the company's isolation capabilities beyond phishing emails to include suspicious attachments as well as credential theft from pages opened up in a web browser.

Pricing on all existing Symantec products will remain the same following the internal enhancements and more robust integrations, according to Grealish.