Enterprise security is changing. Today, it's all about visibility and control

Blue Coat has introduced a new set of cloud security capabilities and services for enterprises and governments. These additions are designed to improve a business' security platform by providing greater visibility, control and data-level security across cloud, on premise and hybrid cloud environments, according to the company. They also capitalise on Blue Coat's recent acquisition of Elastica and integrates key CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) features.

The expanding enterprise security infrastructure

According to Blue Coat, enterprises are experiencing a fundamental shift in the way their employees and customers consume technology. The influx of personally owned devices, ubiquitous high-speed Internet connectivity and cloud-based applications is redefining the enterprise network well beyond the traditional responsibilities of the CIO (chief information officer), the company says.

Sometimes referred to as a dissolving network perimeter, the traditional enterprise network is expanding to include cloud and mobile users and therefore requires a new approach to security.

A security platform for the cloud generation

The newly defined enterprise and new work patterns driven by mobility and the rapid growth of cloud applications can bring substantial productivity gains to organisations and individuals, but also introduce new security and compliance risks, Blue Coat says.

These are the issues facing the 'Cloud Generation' in which enterprises seek to leverage the opportunities offered by cloud applications and services, while also maintaining and growing the traditional corporate network, enabling mobile users and addressing the looming challenge of IoT (Internet of Things), the company says.

Blue Coat has released a set of integrated security technologies to address these new challenges.

As critical components of its Blue Coat Security Platform, the company today introduced new solutions focused on areas of risk for today's enterprises:

An integrated solution to discover and control Shadow IT: Blue Coat announced the integration of the Elastica Audit subscription service with AppFeed – a real-time data feed delivering Shadow IT intelligence to Blue Coat's Secure Web Gateway products.

The combination allows customers to gain visibility into Shadow IT usage and risk, and take actions through cloud access security policies to mitigate those risks. Through Elastica and the integration of its cloud application data feeds into Blue Coat's Secure Web Gateway, comprehensive controls are now available over cloud application usage whether sanctioned or not.

Customers who purchase the Elastica Audit service (discovery, usage and risk analysis, reporting on web and cloud access) will automatically receive access to AppFeed, containing 8,400+ application classifications and attributes for policy controls over cloud application usage.

A security solution for Office 365: Blue Coat announced a full suite of security and governance controls for Microsoft Office 365, which is the most widely deployed enterprise cloud application.

The solution includes integrated access control, advanced threat protection, breach detection, forensic investigation, data security, Cloud-DLP (Data Loss Protection), and granular cloud security policy.

A broad Cloud Security Partner Ecosystem: The Blue Coat Cloud Ready Partner Program creates an open framework to allow a select set of security vendors and SaaS companies to integrate and certify their services and cloud applications directly into the Blue Coat Security Platform. This level of integration allows customers to make the transition to the cloud while maintaining critical visibility and control between users and applications, Blue Coat says.

Charter members of the Blue Coat Cloud Ready Partner Program are: AirWatch, AlienVault, Box, Centrify, Dropbox, E8 Security, Exabeam, Fortscale, Gemalto, HP, Oracle, Seculert, Splunk and Symantec.

"The new era of cloud usage brings with it a host of benefits, but can also be a significant challenge for security teams, as the expansion of the attack surface grows along the three dimensions of devices, networks and applications," says Michael Fey, Blue Coat president and chief operating officer.

"As the global leader in web security, Blue Coat brings its unique web security architecture and large install base to bear on this issue, designed to establish a new extended protective barrier between the world of the cloud and users. We help enterprises safely transition to the cloud, reestablishing control and visibility to the entire IT infrastructure," he says.