Cisco Umbrella
· #442 most-usedDNS-layer security intelligence, automated for every team
Cisco Umbrella is a cloud-native DNS security platform that provides threat protection at the DNS layer — blocking malware, phishing, command-and-control callbacks, and other threats before they can establish a connection. It combines a secure web gateway, DNS-layer enforcement, cloud firewall, and the Cisco Talos-powered Investigate API into a single platform. Connect it to Actionist and your agents can automatically investigate domains and IPs for threat intelligence, add or remove destinations from block and allow lists, pull DNS activity reports for compliance and incident response, and deliver recurring security digests to your team's tools — all without anyone opening the Umbrella dashboard.
Eliminates manual work. Agents eliminate the manual work of logging into the Cisco Umbrella dashboard, pulling reports, exporting threat data, auditing destination lists, and building compliance documents that security and operations teams do every week.
What your Cisco Umbrella agent runs on autopilot
A week of scheduled jobs your Actionist agent will execute on your behalf.
Cisco Umbrella × every other app you use
End-to-end automations that span multiple apps — each one a real business outcome.
Phishing URL detected in email, blocked in Umbrella within a minute
When a suspicious URL arrives in the shared security inbox, the agent submits it to Cisco Umbrella Investigate for reputation scoring. If the score is below the safe threshold, the domain is immediately added to the active block destination list — enforced at the DNS layer across the organization within about a minute. A Slack alert goes to the security team and the incident is logged in Notion before any manual analyst work begins.
Time saved for your team — every week, on autopilot
Savings
What your team gets back — two angles: what you stop doing manually, and what that's worth.
What you do manually today
What your agent runs for you
- Sales30 min / weekManual prospect domain verification
Sales reps have no visibility into the security posture of prospect domains and rely on manual web searches to spot obvious fraud, missing the majority of threat-categorized domains.
Sales Agent0 minAgent vets prospect domains before outreachBefore any rep makes contact, the agent queries Cisco Umbrella Investigate for each new prospect domain and flags anything with a poor reputation score — preventing reps from engaging with fraudulent identities.
- Marketing20 min / weekNo pre-campaign URL security review
Marketing teams send campaign emails without checking whether embedded links pass DNS security filters, risking deliverability issues and brand-reputation damage when links are flagged by recipient tools.
Marketing Agent0 minAgent runs URL threat checks before campaign dispatchBefore any campaign goes out, the agent submits every embedded external URL to Cisco Umbrella Investigate and clears or flags each one — protecting the brand from distributing links that recipient DNS controls would block.
- Customer Support25 min / weekStatic knowledge base links never security-checked
Support teams manually maintain knowledge base URLs with no systematic reputation checks, leading to customer complaints when articles link to destinations that are now blocked by DNS security tools.
Customer Support Agent0 minAgent keeps knowledge base URLs security-currentThe support agent runs Umbrella Investigate on all knowledge base article links weekly, catching any URLs that have degraded in reputation since the article was written and flagging them for replacement before a customer receives them.
- Human Resources15 min / weekOnboarding links never security-checked
HR teams compile onboarding resource links without any reputation checking, occasionally leading to new hires being unable to access onboarding resources blocked by corporate DNS filtering on day one.
Human Resources Agent0 minAgent security-vets onboarding resources before new-hire day oneEvery onboarding resource link is run through Cisco Umbrella Investigate before the kit is sent, ensuring no new hire encounters a DNS block on a mandatory onboarding destination on their first day.
- Finance20 min / weekVendor domain security never checked before payment
Finance teams approve payments to new vendors based on invoice data alone, with no systematic check of vendor domain reputation — leaving the organization exposed to business email compromise and fraudulent vendor attacks.
Finance Agent0 minAgent validates vendor domains before payment approvalWhen a new vendor is submitted for payment, the agent automatically investigates their domain in Cisco Umbrella before approval reaches the payment stage — blocking business email compromise attempts before funds move.
- Operations60 min / weekManual destination list maintenance and reporting
Operations teams manually log into Cisco Umbrella to audit destination lists, pull reports, and compile security digests — a time-consuming process that often results in reporting falling behind a weekly cadence.
Operations Agent0 minAgent maintains destination lists and delivers weekly security digestsThe operations agent audits destination lists weekly, closes threat-to-block-list gaps automatically, and delivers a cross-team security digest to Slack — all without anyone logging into the Umbrella dashboard.
- Legal45 min / weekManual monthly compliance evidence collection
Legal teams manually log into Cisco Umbrella, export multiple reports, and compile them into compliance evidence documents every month — a process that takes hours and is prone to missing the correct date range.
Legal Agent0 minAgent builds compliance attestation documents from Umbrella data monthlyOn the first of each month, the agent retrieves the security summary, threat types, and active policies from Cisco Umbrella and compiles them into a structured attestation document ready for SOC 2 and cyber insurance audit review.
Calculate what your team saves
Based on Cisco Umbrella's typical team usage — the visible tasks plus a few other automations the agent runs: ~2.5 hrs / person / week of admin work automated.
How to plug Cisco Umbrella into Actionist
Pick the connection method that suits your environment.
Connect using a Cisco Umbrella API Key and Secret generated from the Admin > API Keys section of the Umbrella dashboard. This is the standard credential type for Umbrella's management, reporting, and investigate APIs.
Log in to the Cisco Umbrella dashboard and navigate to Admin > API Keys. Click Add to generate a new key pair. Choose a descriptive name and assign the scopes needed for your planned actions (reports, policies, investigate).
Copy both the Key and the Secret values immediately — the secret is shown only once. Store them securely in your secrets manager.
Paste the Key into the API Key field and the Secret into the API Secret field in Actionist, then click Test connection to confirm the handshake.
14 actions your agent can call
Read and write operations available to your Actionist agent.
0 events your agent can react to
Events your agent watches for, and the actions it kicks off in response.