Blue Coat unveils strategy for securely empowering businesses

“With its Business Assurance Technology, Blue Coat offers a new security approach that makes it possible for enterprises to harness the power of technology in a secure and safe way,” said Matthew Gyde, global general manager of security at Dimension Data. “Our clients are increasingly looking to IT as a partner that can help drive key strategic initiatives, and the Blue Coat approach aims to achieve this. The focus on trusted applications and integrating security intelligence and analytics for advanced threat protection is particularly valuable as those are two of the most important initiatives our clients have today.”

Blue Coat products enable enterprises to unleash business growth, productivity and innovation through the following:
· Security and Policy Enforcement Center delivers business continuity by protecting against threats and data loss. With the Security and Policy Enforcement Center enterprises can provide a safe and productive Internet and network experience for users.
· Mobility Empowerment Center extends protection and policy to users in any location on any device. With the Mobility Empowerment Center, organizations can successfully drive mobile business initiatives. For example, airlines can reduce costs by replacing emergency flight manuals with iPads for all pilots.
· Trusted Application Center enables organizations to safely deploy and consume all types of applications. With the Trusted Application Center, businesses can achieve closer relationships with customers through the innovative use of applications. For example, insurance companies can accept photos of damages to speed claims processing.
· Performance Center aligns IT infrastructure with business priorities to assure network performance and optimize user experience across the extended enterprise. With the Performance Center, IT can effectively align performance strategies with key business strategies. For example, retail stores can provide a more tailored customer experience.
· Resolution Center provides businesses with advanced threat protection by combining deep security intelligence and analytics with a large network effect from 75 million users worldwide. With the Resolution Center, enterprises can adjust security policies based on in-depth security analytics and quickly recover from a data breach.

“The proliferation of apps has fundamentally changed the Web, driving a shift away from browser-based Web traffic to application-based Web traffic, making trusted applications a crucial focus for empowered businesses,” said Greg Clark, CEO at Blue Coat Systems. “With the introduction of new products in our Trusted Application and Resolution Centers, we are extending our ability to leverage a global network of millions of users at more than 15,000 organizations to provide threat and application intelligence.”

New Dynamic Classification Service Drives Trusted Application Model
Over 1.2 million apps are currently in the App Store and Google Play, providing users with the opportunity to tailor their app experience in a way that is revolutionizing productivity. These applications have changed the nature of Web content. Now, categorizing all Web content to effectively enforce policies and assure compliance requires a new approach that can understand and categorize applications.

To help enterprises gain control of this application landscape and build a trusted application model, Blue Coat is introducing its new Application Classification Service and Application Controller as part of its Trusted Application Center. Together, these new products empower enterprises to:
· Dynamically Classify Applications: The new Application Classification Service constantly adapts to the evolving application landscape, providing dynamic application classification and comprehensive application profiles.

· Understand Application Behavior to Mitigate Risk: Comprehensive profiles that provide detailed characteristics on applications allow enterprises to assess the business value, threat and compliance risk and bandwidth impact of specific applications and set policy accordingly.

· Identify and Control Application Traffic in Real Time: Using application intelligence from the Application Classification Service, the new Application Controller classifies all applications on the network in real time and enforces policies to prevent access to applications that present a known threat or violate acceptable risk levels.

Security Analytics and Network Effect Drive Advanced Threat Protection
In today’s increasingly complex and sophisticated threat environment, businesses increasingly assume they will, at some point, be breached. This assumption is driving an expansion of traditional prevention technologies to include remediation technologies that can quickly identify breaches and root causes and update security processes to prevent similar breaches in the future.

To help enterprises protect against advanced targeted attacks, Blue Coat is introducing its new SSL Visibility appliance based upon technologies recently acquired from Netronome Systems. Today, Blue Coat also announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Solera Networks, which develops technology that acts like a camera on the network. Both technologies are critical components of the Resolution Center, which combines analytic and forensic capabilities with the network effect of 75 million users to provide a modern malware defense that protects the business before, during and after an event. With the Resolution Center, customers will have comprehensive visibility into the content and context of advanced targeted attacks that will allow them to:
· Protect against advanced threats by combining traditional malware blocking with analytics and a large network effect that can prevent attacks in real time
· Identify and resolve the root cause of targeted attacks for remediation and prevention of future attacks
· Improve governance through real-time feedback into security processes and policies

The SSL Visibility appliance will be available this summer, and the Application Classification Service will be available later this year. The acquisition of Solera Networks is expected to close within the next 30 days.