Zscaler has extended the reach of its security service to now include protection capabilities add cloud browser isolation along with cloud security posture management (CSPM) for software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and a cloud access security broker (CASB).
Company CTO Amit Sinha said these offerings extend the reach of a Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform that shifts the locus for managing security away from on-premises IT environments to a network of more than 150 data centers operated by Zscaler.
Zscaler CSPM, for example, continuously identifies and remediates application misconfigurations in SaaS applications such as Microsoft Office 365 as an extension of Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange.
The Zscaler Cloud Browser Isolation, meanwhile, creates an intermediary between the user and the application. Rather than transferring data to the browser, it intercepts requests for data and then presents that data as an image. Data never actually leaves the cloud application.
Finally, the CASB provides both inline security and out-of-band protection for SaaS applications by limiting who can access thousands of SaaS applications.
Sinha said Zscaler is designed to layer on top of any network services that extends the security perimeter all the way to the endpoint using a proxy-based architecture. That software-defined approach to security eliminates the need for dedicated firewall appliances at the network perimeter in addition to creating an impetus to consolidate IT security offerings around a service, at a time when many organizations need to reduce their total cost of IT, he said.
Organizations also don’t have to standardize on, for example, a specific software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) to securely deliver traffic to remote offices and edge-computing platforms, Sinha noted.
For its most recent fourth quarter, Zscaler reported revenues of $125.9 million, a 46% increase year-over-year. That momentum shows an approach to managing security as a true service is gaining traction, said Sinha.
It’s not clear to what degree security professionals are going to embrace a software-defined approach to security based on a proxy-based architecture. Many organizations have multiple millions of dollars invested on on-premises security hardware that collectively conspires to create a significant amount inertia to overcome. However, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sinha said it’s become more apparent that with employees working from home more often, the network perimeter has all but disappeared.
That transition will only further accelerate as more application workloads shift to the cloud, he added, noting in the absence of workloads deployed in on-premises IT environments the entire center of gravity for application is shifting. The way organizations need to secure those applications naturally will shift along with those applications.
In effect, Zscaler is shifting the capital costs involving the acquisition of security hardware to an operational model based on a service. It may take some time for cybersecurity teams to get used to that idea but it’s also clear that as the rest of IT transitions to that model it’s only a matter of time before security follows suit.