Cisco has officially launched Meraki Access Manager, a cloud-native zero-trust service designed to simplify network authentication and security management. Presented at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live EMEA 2025 by Alex Burger, Principal Engineer, and Stephen Orr, Distinguished Engineer, the new solution, they said, addresses complexities and management headaches associated with traditional RADIUS-based authentication and enhances security without the need for self-hosted infrastructure.
Meraki Access Manager streamlines access management for wireless and wired networks, eliminating the reliance on external authentication servers like Cisco ISE. Instead, it leverages secure cloud-based tunnels which reduce overhead and operational costs. The platform integrates with Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) for identity-based authentication and supports micro-segmentation using Secure Group Tags (SGTs) to enhance policy enforcement. SGTs allow for more granular access policies to be created for both traditional IT and operational technology (OT) networks without the need to rely on more complicated VLAN-based solutions.
The system offers adaptive policy controls, automated switch port configurations and profile-based access restrictions to counter MAC address spoofing and unauthorized network access. While currently exclusive to Meraki-managed networks, Cisco plans to expand support for additional identity providers such as Okta and Google.
Security experts present at Tech Field Day Extra view the Meraki Access Manager as a major step toward a simplified and scalable zero-trust framework, particularly in environments where IT and OT networks converge. The solution is expected to evolve, incorporating capabilities like real-time profiling, flow telemetry analysis and further integration with Cisco’s MX firewall series.
The Meraki Access Manager is also aimed at helping organizations secure devices, both corporately owned and unmanaged. This flexibility will allow organizations to create specific policies for managed devices that allow greater resource access while also ensuring that unmanaged devices are still able to function without creating security issues for the wider network, Cisco says.
Future improvements to Meraki Access Manager will include the aforementioned integration with other identity providers, advanced profiling and behavioral detection for device fingerprinting, interface templates for automated policy enforcement, and greater integration into Cisco security suites.
The device fingerprinting is especially important as it is crucial for IoT device security, since these devices are rarely managed and often only found through communications and behavioral analysis.
As cyber threats evolve, Cisco’s cloud-first approach aims to provide enterprises with a seamless, highly secure and easy-to-manage authentication solution, reinforcing its position as a leader in network security.
