IEIC Special Coverage | Krishna Narayanaswamy

Netskope, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist

In the past decade we have observed the steady increase in the adoption of cloud applications in the enterprise. Based on the latest Netskope Cloud Report, there are in excess of 1,200 cloud applications being used in a typical enterprise. Another trend in the enterprise is also increased mobility of the users. The combination of these two trends are driving enterprises to rethink their security posture. This rethinking is taking an even more prominent role with the current Covid19 pandemic we are in the midst of. With most enterprise users now working remotely the legacy method of backhauling traffic to centralized data centers to enforce security policies is sub optimal and losing favor. Enterprises are adopting security as a service delivered in the cloud. Modern security services delivered in the cloud are hosted on a distributed edge network to minimize latency for the users. This architecture directly implies the presence of a resilient Internet infrastructure on which the security service is hosted. This makes the difference on the user experience of a patient having a telemedicine appointment with his care provider or an investment professional making a timely stock trade. The end goal is to make the cloud security service the enabler of a safe and productive workforce even in these unprecedented times.