Cloudbrink launches OnGuard to unify enterprise security

Cloudbrink has introduced OnGuard, a security and connectivity product for enterprises, broadening its platform across users, devices and machines.

OnGuard is designed to let companies apply one policy framework across secure access, internet security, secure web gateway functions, AI security and remote connectivity, rather than managing separate products for each area. Cloudbrink is positioning it against established suppliers, including Cisco, arguing that many corporate security environments have become too fragmented.

The launch marks an effort by the Sunnyvale-based group to move beyond user-focused remote-access security. Under the model it outlined, policy enforcement can begin when a device comes online and continue independently of any user session, including before a user logs in.

That approach aims to extend the same controls to machines and applications as well as employees. Customers can use a single configuration for zero-trust network access, secure web gateway policies, AI security, multi-cloud connectivity, digital experience monitoring and quality-of-experience tools.

Single console

The product includes separate secure overlay tunnels for machines and user contexts, meaning a secure tunnel can be established as soon as a device starts up without user action.

Other features include administrator approval before policy enforcement, the ability for administrators to block or terminate machine tunnels, and a central console for visibility into both user and machine activity. Firms can also apply different policies to machine tunnels, including internet security, AI security and access controls.

The announcement comes as companies reassess security architectures built over years of adding tools for specific threats or use cases. Suppliers across the sector have expanded from virtual private networks and web gateways into broader secure-access offerings, while the rise of AI-related safeguards has added another layer of products for many information technology teams.

Cloudbrink argues that enterprises want fewer systems and policy frameworks to manage. It says a single platform can reduce overlap between products used for secure remote access, web security and machine-level controls.

Prakash Mana, Chief Executive Officer of Cloudbrink, framed the launch as a direct challenge to multi-product approaches in the market.

"Cisco has spent years asking customers to solve secure access by adding another product," said Prakash Mana, Chief Executive Officer of Cloudbrink. "Umbrella, AnyConnect, Secure Access and now AI Defence may all carry the Cisco logo, but enterprises still have to think about multiple technologies, policies and operating models. We took the opposite approach: one software platform, one policy framework, and one experience for the user. OnGuard now extends that model beyond the user to the machine. We believe a single Cloudbrink platform can eliminate a significant portion of the Cisco secure-access stack."

Customer example

Cloudbrink said the new product builds on deployments in which customers have already replaced existing remote-access systems. One example it cited involved a US insurance business that had been using Cisco AnyConnect and Fortinet tools.

According to Cloudbrink, that customer moved 300 employees on the first day of deployment and more than 600 in the first week. It added that remote-connectivity support calls then "pretty much disappeared", citing the insurer's Vice President of IT.

The broader market context is likely to shape how such claims are received. Large enterprises often run overlapping security estates because different teams buy tools for networking, endpoint protection, identity, web filtering and cloud access, making consolidation difficult even when vendors promise a unified platform.

Cloudbrink's pitch also touches on operational concerns as much as technical ones. By extending policy enforcement to machines as well as users, it is trying to address scenarios such as unattended devices, background services and applications that need secure connectivity even when no employee is signed in.

For information technology departments, that could shift some remote-access management away from session-based controls and towards device-level enforcement. It also reflects a wider move in enterprise security towards treating users, devices and workloads under a single policy model rather than as separate categories managed through different tools.

Cloudbrink said the platform is intended to give customers consistent policy enforcement across users and machines, with visibility from one console and administrative control over both. It added that the same framework could help customers meet compliance requirements while reducing the number of systems they need to operate.