Cisco announces Webex for Defense, built specifically for the Pentagon | ZDNet

Cisco on Tuesday announced the launch of Webex for Defense, a version of its collaboration platform built specifically for the Pentagon. 

Webex for Defense has received provisional authorization from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to operate at DoD Impact Level 5 (IL5). That means it can support the Defense Department’s national security systems, higher-sensitivity controlled unclassified information (CUI), as well as mission-critical information. It’s cleared to support all workloads, including calling, meeting and messaging, and it connects to the full portfolio of Webex devices. 

The product is connected to the DoD Information Network via DISA-managed Cloud Access Points and delivered out of Cisco-hosted, DoD IL5-certified data centers.

Cisco also offers the FedRAMP-authorized Webex for Government for other customers within the federal government. 

Webex for Defense comes about a month after Cisco debuted an entirely revamped version of the collaboration suite, adding hundreds of new features. While Webex is a familiar brand, it’s faced increased competition in the collaboration space as Zoom and other platforms won new customers during the pandemic. 

The Defense-focused version of Webex allows Cisco to tout its security capabilities. The company noted that earlier this year, the National Security Agency published a set of guidelines for “Selecting and Safely Using Collaboration Services for Telework” that ranked Webex as best-of-breed.