Cisco releases free (but mostly useless) security information app for iPhone

This week Cisco released a new iPhone app called Cisco SIO To Go [iTunes link]. The application is primarily focused on delivering security and threat information via a number of freely available online feeds including Cyber Risk Report, Cisco Threat Outbreaks, Cisco Security Blog, and even some of Cisco's Twitter feeds. This information is available on the app's Security Alerts page.

All of this could be done in your favorite feed reader, so it's a little disappointing that this is the focus of Cisco SIO To Go. The application also features a Lookup page, which allows you to look up a domain name to look up its Email or Web Reputation score. This screen has some interesting-looking red, yellow, and green flashing lights with interesting labels like "Virus outbreak in progress", but unfortunately they don't seem to actually mean or do anything. Maybe they relate to the domain lookup, but if they do it certainly isn't clear how. None of the domains I searched seemed to be color-coded in any way.

While it's hard to complain about a free app, at the same time Cisco is in a unique position to offer some unique functionality like maybe push notifications when virus outbreaks or serious security vulnerabilities are discovered. There's nothing inherently wrong with Cisco SIO To Go, but there's also not much right with it. Cisco could do better if they wanted to.

[via InSecurity Complex]

Tags: cisco, cisco sio, cisco-sio, CiscoSio, cyber risk, cyber-risk, CyberRisk, do, domain-lookup, freeware