Cisco Wants To Balance Privacy With Security

David Goeckeler, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Networking and Security Business, is standing next to the Catalyst 9000 during a press conference at Pearl on Tuesday in San Francisco.

The Catalyst 9300 is seen during a press conference at Pearl on Tuesday in San Francisco. Cisco announced the launch of Encrypted Traffic Analytics, a new technology that makes it more difficult for hackers to confidentially attack organizations using Cisco products. The company also unveiled its new fixed-core business switch, the Catalyst 9000.

It's a common trade-off in cybersecurity: Do you want privacy, or do you want protection?

To be safer, businesses typically have to accept some level of vigilance, inviting third parties to track traffic and monitor network data for intruders, threats or malicious software.

Cisco wants to do away with that option.

At a news conference on Tuesday in San Francisco announcing its "intentions-based" network, the computer networking company said it found a way to detect hidden malware in encrypted traffic without decrypting or decrypting the secret code that protects data Being transmitted.