Cloud-based security thrives during downturn

As enterprise users seek to offload more and more IT-related functionality to cloud service providers, one area of great activity is security. New cloud service providers have emerged to address a range of security needs — and several of them say they’re seeing growth in the area of 40% to 50% per year or more, despite the economic downturn.

Securing Internet users

Employees are increasingly relying on the Internet for job-related functions. But allowing employees to access the Internet opens an organization up to a range of vulnerabilities.

Some enterprises use proxy servers and other on-site equipment to guard against these threats. But that approach requires a significant hardware and software investment, as well as ongoing IT support. Increasingly enterprises are finding they can save money and enhance security by using a cloud-based approach. Two providers that have arisen to address this need are iSheriff and Zscaler.

“We achieve clean Internet access,” said Manoj Apte, vice president of product management for Zscaler. “We tell them, ‘Point your browser to us and you’re secure.’”

Zscaler offers service worldwide based on infrastructure that includes a network of more than 40 distributed boxes called "enforcement nodes" connected to centralized redundant data repositories. All of a client’s employee Internet usage is routed through the closest Zscaler node, where software developed internally by Zscaler applies security checks such as virus protection and URL filtering. The latter prevents employees from connecting to inappropriate sites such as adult content sites. Zscaler also collects data from the distributed boxes and brings it back to the centralized repository, eliminating the need for a client’s IT personnel to keep track of logs located at individual client locations — a particularly useful benefit for organizations that have many locations scattered across a large geographic area.

Using Zscaler also eliminates the need for IT personnel to manage and maintain software to guard against security vulnerabilities, Apte said. “Our team is always on top of security threats, and they automatically update the specifications within an hour of when a vulnerability is announced.”

Authorized personnel at end user organizations can access an administrative interface to Zscaler to customize policies for the organization. For example, different companies might have different policies about data leakage — the sending of credit card or other information to the Internet.

Zscaler developed its own software so that it would scale to support hundreds of thousands of users. “We had to create it from scratch because there was nothing out there,” Apte said. “Proxy servers made for the enterprise do about 1000 connections per second. We have to do 250,000 connections per second.”

Zscaler sells its cloud-based service directly to end user organizations. In addition the offering is available on a white label basis to other service providers.

Another cloud provider, iSheriff, provides cloud-based security for e-mail communications as well as Web usage.

Like Zscaler, iSheriff developed its own software. “A lot of cloud solutions are three or four products slapped together; our product is home-grown,” said Oscar Marquez, CEO of the company.

iSheriff’s software runs in a distributed fashion across multiple network operations centers (NOCs) worldwide, including dedicated and virtual NOCs, which are shared with other service providers.

One important benefit of using iSheriff rather than handling e-mail and Web security in house is that iSheriff works with multiple security vendors, enabling it to address security vulnerabilities more promptly. “One vendor may find a vulnerability on Thursday and they have 24 hours until they have to announce that they found it,” Marquez said.

Another advantage of using iSheriff is that the cloud provider removes unwanted material such as spam, streaming video and malware before it gets to the customer premises, Marquez said. Often this results in a substantial reduction in the amount of traffic flowing into the company, thereby reducing bandwidth requirements and, more importantly, improving the performance of online applications the client may be providing to its customers.