Symantec Corp. announced new innovations and enhancements to its Network Security for the Cloud Generation solution, designed to protect enterprise devices, anywhere their employees work or travel, across the network, the cloud, mobile and traditional endpoints. As an integral element of Symantec's Integrated Cyber Defense Platform, enhancements to the solution include:

• Industry-first Web Isolation technology integrated into Symantec's Web Security Service (WSS), enables web browsing without risk of infection by zero-day malware or advanced threats.
• Comprehensive network-to-endpoint protection with the integration of Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) and SEP Mobile into WSS, allowing web traffic re-directs to WSS for enforcement of network security policies, thus eliminating the need for a separate agent to manage traffic flow.
• SD-Cloud Connector enables customers to combine the performance and reliability of Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) technology with Symantec's WSS to create a simple, high-performance method to connect branch office locations with its leading cloud security service.

Symantec's WSS is a single-service offering that includes Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Web Isolation, malware inspection engines, sandboxing, data loss prevention (DLP), and cloud access security broker (CASB), and integrates with multi-factor authentication. The new features provide businesses with a comprehensive, easy-to-use, cloud-based network security service that safeguards critical business information for secure and compliant cloud application and web use.

As businesses adopt cloud applications such as Office 365 and employees access these apps remotely, it introduces new security and compliance risks. Symantec's Network Security for the Cloud Generation provides comprehensive protection designed to meet the needs of increasingly diverse enterprise IT operations and secure modern business environments - including cloud-based services as well as physical and virtual appliances.

"Web Isolation is a critical innovation that is helping our customers address new types of advanced threats that target employee web browsers by protecting against malware and phishing attacks without over-blocking or impeding productivity," said Mike Fey, Symantec President and COO. "These additions to our Web Security Service help meet the challenges of the cloud generation by protecting users and data with the most comprehensive set of cloud-delivered threat prevention capabilities on the market, all in a single-service offering."

SGN, a natural gas distribution company that distributes to more than 5.9 million homes and businesses, uses Symantec's WSS to secure its distributed workforce. SGN CISO, Mo Ahddoud said, "Security is of paramount importance in this industry, and with an increasingly mobile workforce, the challenge to secure employees' devices both at work and on-the-move has never been so great. With Symantec Web Security Service, we're able to enforce company compliance policies for all users, regardless of location or device; to support productivity and protect against evolving threats."

Jon Oltsik, senior principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group said, "Enterprises are wrestling with the complexity and cost of integrating improved security capabilities into their existing network stack. This challenge is heightened by the fact that so many employees work remotely or in branch offices. Symantec's cloud-delivered Web Security Service can help address these challenges, with a comprehensive set of threat prevention, information security and cloud application control capabilities. The new Web Isolation, endpoint integrations and SD-Cloud Connector capabilities bring additional security and simplicity benefits that many organizations will value."

As part of Symantec's Integrated Cyber Defense Platform, Network Security for the Cloud Generation can seamlessly redirect web traffic at multiple levels, such as the endpoint, integrate intelligence from the world's largest civilian threat intelligence network, and enforce consistent security policies to help with compliance of corporate policies.

Symantec's Network Security for the Cloud Generation is available now; SEP Mobile integration will be available in the third calendar quarter. SD-WAN providers wishing to certify their product's interoperability with the Web Security Service can find more information here.