Cisco updates platform to allow MSPs to deliver security services

Cisco has rolled out a platform advancement for MSPs to deliver security services, adding multi-customer management capabilities within Security Cloud Control, Cisco’s unified, AI-powered management platform.

This console leverages advanced AIOps and AgenticOps to enable organisations to centrally manage a full suite of security solutions. This includes the Hybrid Mesh Firewall with AI Defense, and Secure Access, Cisco’s advanced security service edge (SSE) offering.

Cisco’s Hybrid Mesh Firewall is a distributed security solution optimised to block advanced threats, protect against vulnerabilities - including those in AI models - and enable zero-trust segmentation across data centers, clouds, and edge sites.

It uses network and workload identities to create micro-perimeters, applying segmentation and AI-driven threat protection at the app edge and within workloads. This enables organisations to define policy and enforce it everywhere, across Cisco firewalls, Smart Switches, workload agents leveraging eBPF, and even third-party firewalls.

Policies are managed centrally by Security Cloud Control, while telemetry integrates with Splunk.

Now with built-in support for managing multiple customers extended to Hybrid Mesh Firewall, MSPs can offer security solutions to their clients.

These include the new Cisco Secure Firewall 200 Series, which delivers advanced on-box threat inspection and integrated SD-WAN for distributed branches at up to 3x price-performance according to the company, and the Cisco Secure Firewall 6100 Series, offering "extremely high-performance density" for AI-ready data centers.

Cisco’s latest firewall software, Secure Firewall Threat Defense 7.7, detected and stopped between 99.5% and 100% of threats in the most recent testing by NetSecOPEN, a non-profit organisation that develops open, standardised testing methods for network security products.

An Manager View provides a single pane of glass for navigating across managed entities, subscriptions, and access controls, reducing administrative overhead.

Other key capabilities within Security Cloud Control include streamlined customer onboarding and configuration at scale, complete with safeguards and clear permission structures; precise control over administrator access for managed customers, ensuring engineers and support staff have only the necessary permissions; and simplified license allocation, tracking, and auditing across multiple customers, supporting models like multi-architecture Managed Services Enterprise Agreement (MSEA) and consumption-based Managed Services License Agreement (MSLA).

A standardised gateway also provides a consistent developer experience to automate customer onboarding and provisioning.

"MSPs are on the front lines, helping businesses navigate the complexities of modern cybersecurity, especially as AI makes threats more sophisticated," said Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer, Cisco.

"The new multi-customer management capabilities in Cisco Security Cloud Control, coupled with our Hybrid Mesh Firewall, are designed to eliminate operational friction, empower our partners to accelerate revenue growth, and ultimately deliver superior security outcomes for their customers."

The new multi-customer management capabilities in Security Cloud Control, which are expected to be generally available in February 2026.