Do you feel that you've been hearing a lot about data breaches lately? You are right! Take a look at the chart below. There is plenty of time left in September, but the data breach calendar is already filled with victim names. And August? I don't even have enough space to put down all the victim names.

If anyone believes that if we do a great job, we can fully guard our data and valuable information assets against attacks and breaches, now it's time to think again. The reality is, data breaches can happen to anyone. They are happening everywhere from household names, to lesser-known businesses or organizations, and  to the mighty government of the United States. The question is no longer "if", it is "when".

However, this does not mean that we will just give up. On the contrary, we need new thinking. And get prepared. We need to be prepared before breaches take place to minimize their chances to succeed. We need to be prepared during breaches to detect and stop them. And we need to be prepared to rapidly apply mitigations after breaches. We cannot totally eliminate these risks, but we can control and minimize them.Cisco Enterprise Network solutions provide built-in security such as Cyber Threat Defense and Policy Defined Network Segmentation to help defend against data breaches. The best part is, you already have most of these capabilities when you deploy Cisco routing, switching and wireless networks. You'll just need to plan ahead and turn them on.

On Sept 18, 2014 we hosted a live webcast on Cisco Enterprise Network webcast. We covered these ideas in great detail. This webcast is still available as an on-demand resource - click here to register and watch. We look forward to seeing you in future live events!