18 minute read
SECURITY
from June Issue 2022
by SME Channels
RIC SMITH
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER SENTINELONE
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MARKET AND OUR GLOBAL CUSTOMER BASE.”
SentinelOne today launched it’s Operations Centre in Bengaluru to help organizations in the broader region address the growing threat of cyberattacks. The Centre will deliver innovation, product development, threat research, and engineering, recruiting top talent to modernize cyberdefense.
As a key component to SentinelOne’s India investment and build out, customer data will be stored in a local data center. In the coming years, SentinelOne plans to invest US$50 million in India as part of its ongoing global expansion.
As India’s government and businesses digitize, cyberattacks are an increasing risk. India’s Computer Emergency Response team (CERT-In)
SENTINELONE LAUNCHES OPERATIONS CENTRE IN
BENGALURU
With the launch of it’s State-of-the-art Operations Centre in Bengaluru, SentinelOne has reinforced its market presence to help organizations address the growing threat of cyberattacks.
reported the country faced 11.5 million cyberattack incidents in 2021. Besides corporate attacks, the country’s critical infrastructure and government agencies were also targeted. Concurrently, India is also facing the challenge of an acute shortage of skilled cybersecurity talent preventing organizations from effectively combating growing cyber-risk.
SentinelOne pioneered the first purpose-built AI-powered extended detection and response (XDR) platform to make cybersecurity defense autonomous, from endpoint and beyond. Singularity XDR is leveraged globally by organisations of all sizes, across industry verticals, and is protecting the world’s largest enterprises. Earlier this year, SentinelOne announced the acquisition of Attivo Networks for US$616.5 million as part of its inorganic growth strategy including its Indiabased operations.
“SentinelOne’s Bengaluru Operations Centre represents an investment in talent and technology to serve the local market and our global customer base,” said Ric Smith, Chief Technology Officer, SentinelOne. “The Centre’s engineers and threat researchers will focus on cutting-edge cybersecurity innovations to address the exponentially growing threat landscape. Bengaluru was a natural choice because of the talent footprint and market opportunity that India presents.”
From the current headcount of 100, SentinelOne plans to increase the local presence by 500 over the coming years. Hiring will focus on talent across Engineering, Researchers, Sales, Marketing and Business Development, as well as Finance, HR, and Operations. SentinelOne is building an India-hosted data centre as well, demonstrating the commitment to helping India-based organizations comply with evolving local data hosting regulations and preferences.
“Since beginning our regional presence in 2021, SentinelOne is protecting some of India’s largest automobile, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, insurance, and food delivery companies as well as one of its largest airlines and busiest airports. The Indian market is ready to move beyond ineffective legacy antivirus, and there is a high demand for cutting edge cybersecurity technologies from Indian enterprises,” said Raj Rajamani, Chief Product Officer, SentinelOne.
“We are investing in our India-go-to-market strategy and local data residency to serve the region’s enterprises and government bodies. We’re excited to bring India’s enterprises to the era of XDR, autonomously preventing, detecting, and responding to threats across device, cloud, and identity,” he added.
• Plans to invest $50 million in India as part of its ongoing global expansion • SentinelOne has launched its operations centre in Bengaluru to help address growing threat of cyberattacks. • The centre will deliver innovation, product development, threat research, and engineering, recruiting top talent. • The centre represents an investment in talent and technology to serve the local market and its global customer base. • The centre’s engineers and threat researchers will focus on cutting-edge cybersecurity innovations. • Bengaluru was a natural choice because of the talent footprint and market opportunity that India presents. • SentinelOne plans to increase its current headcount of 100 in India, by hiring 500 more over the next five years. • SentinelOne will also build an India hosted datacenter to ensure local data residency in order to help India-based organizations comply with evolving local data hosting regulations and preferences.
INDIA EXPANSION PLANS
SHARDA TICKOO
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, INDIA AND SAARC, TREND MICRO
Trend Micro today announced the findings of a new global study indicating that organizations are struggling to define and secure an expanding cyber-attack surface, hampering risk manage-
ORGANIZATIONS CONCERNED AS DIGITAL ATTACK
SURFACE SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL
The findings of Trend Micro’s new global study indicates that organizations are struggling to define and secure an expanding cyber-attack surface, hampering risk management efforts.
ment efforts.
Covering 6297 IT and business decision makers across 29 countries including India, the Trend Micro study revealed that on average, organisations in India have only 67% visibility over their complete attack surface while 95% of organizations have been able to define their attack surface to an extent. Over a 39% of organizations feel completely exposed to cyber risk in case of a cloud outage.
Visibility challenges appear to be the main reason organizations are struggling to manage and understand cyber risk in these environments. 92% of respondents are concerned about the ever evolving and broadening attack surface.
Major investments done in IT modernization in recent years seems to have created a momentum that is becoming increasingly difficult to manage.64% of the survey respondents highlighted that their organization’s digital attack surface is complex but can be controlled.
The attack surface visibility is extremely challenging in the current times due to various reasons such as lacking the right tool, or organizations have too many tools that is keeping information in silos, constant technology innovation, lack of visibility, etc. 41% of respondents feel that their organization’s attack surface has the least visibility over network assets.
“IT modernization over the past two years was a necessary response to the ravages of the pandemic, but in many cases it unwittingly expanded the digital attack surface, giving threat actors more opportunities to compromise key assets,” said Sharda Tickoo, Technical Director, India and SAARC, Trend Micro. “A unified, platform-based approach is the best way to minimize visibility gaps, enhance risk assessments and improve protection across these complex, distributed IT environments.”
In India, 93% of respondents feel that the C-Suite should play a more vital role in demonstrating good cybersecurity practices and 65% of organisations currently have a moderate risk exposure, while 55% of organisations plan to invest in education for their IT team in 2022.
Similarly, 39% of organisations were found to use a platform model currently to manage their digital attack surface and a good 57% of respondents say improved visibility is the greatest advantage of having a platform model.
• (73%) of global organizations are worried about their growing attack surface • (62%) said they have blind spots that hamper security, with cloud environments cited as the most opaque. • (54%) of global organizations don’t believe their method of assessing risk exposure is sophisticated enough • Only 45% have a completely well-defined way to assess risk exposure • (24%) are still mapping their systems manually and 29% do so regionally—which can create further silos and visibility gaps • More than a third (35%) only review/ update their exposure monthly or less frequently • Just 23% review risk exposure daily • Keeping up to date with the ever-changing attack surface is the top area organizations struggle with
SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL
THE TREND MICRO GLOBAL STUDY REVEALED THAT:
TECHNOBIND TO
VENTURE INTO INDUSTRIAL IOT MARKET
TechnoBind’s planned entry into the IIoT sector is integral to their long-term strategy to expand into the growing automation and IoT market segment.
TechnoBind has announced its plan to enter the Industrial IoT (IIoT) market in India. The planned entry into the IIoT sector is a part of their long-term strategy to expand into the growing automation and IoT market segment. TechnoBind is gearing up their stack of offerings in Industrial Automation, given that the market is moving rigorously towards a pragmatic Industry 4.0, and the channel community looking
PRASHANTH GJ
CEO, TECHNOBIND
for new solutions and growth strategies, especially in the IoT, IIoT and cloud verticals.
“Industry 4.0 is here and Industrial IoT is a very critical piece of this. With our existing base of technologies in Cybersecurity, Cloud and Analytics, we are now foraying into the IOT space. We believe that our deep relationships with our System Integrators, who have built their foundation on–integrating software, hardware and services into meaningful solutions that solve significant business problems, will enable us to leverage them in putting together these IOT solutions for customers and help ride the Industry 4.0 wave,” says Prashanth GJ, CEO at TechnoBind.
Through its established channel network combined with its strategic initiatives, TechnoBind has marked its presence in almost all major verticals like enterprise, manufacturing, BFSI, SMB, and government.
NETGEAR’S CHANNEL PARTNERS MEET IN PROGRESS IN NEW DELHI
NETGEAR ORGANIZES MULTI-CITY CHANNEL PARTNER MEETS
Netgear recently organized a series of events for its partner community, which was had witnessed more than 75 partners in Delhi and Cochin. Company is expecting more partners in the upcoming events in other cities.
BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA
sanjay@smechannels.com
NETGEAR is hosting a series of multicity meets for its Channel Partners to introduce and educate them on its Pro AV product line. This segment has increased its usage of plug and play switching and has inspired NETGEAR to create switches specific to ProAV, M Series of Switches.
The events were kicked off from New Delhi, April 2022 and will continue till June 2022. The company is arranging these Training and Demo Sessions for its esteemed partners nationally in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, viz., New Delhi, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Indore, Mumbai, Cochin, Vijayawada and Chennai.
A highly channel oriented company, NETGEAR organizes and implements various Channel Partner programs from time to time. The company’s channel partner programs are announced to educate them to understand the product in a better way through interactive sessions and demos thereby providing them a hands-on experience on the Product usage and salient features. These types of customized channel partner events eventually help the partners to attend to their respective customers more efficiently with a proper knowhow of the product range and its benefits.
The events received a robust response from the channel community, with more than 75 partners attending the event in Delhi and Cochin only and are expected to see more partners in the upcoming events in other cities. During the sessions, NETGEAR focused on Pro AV M4250 Series. These latest series of switches are developed and engineered for the growing audio, video over IP (AV over IP) market. These AV Line switches combine years of networking expertise with best practices from leading experts in the professional AV market.
Marthesh Nagendra, Country Manager – India, ME & SAARC, NETGEAR said “Our business in India is purely driven by the channel partners and therefore it is critical that we educate our partners about our offerings. With these multi-city meets we enable our partners with the right pitch to position our Pro AV product lines accurately to our customers in the competitive market.”
SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC’S UPDATED IT PARTNER PROGRAM ENABLES PARTNERS TO GROW AND DIFFERENTIATE THEIR BUSINESSES IN THE LONG-TERM.
BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA
sanjay@smechannels.com
Schneider Electric has announced its new mySchneider IT Partner Program, which will provide a simplified, innovative and collaborative approach to enable partner growth. This re-vamped program will focus on enabling diverse and evolving business models and allow partners to differentiate their business by becoming a strategic advisor and expert in their market across multiple IT competencies.
Schneider Electric’s updated IT partner program empowers and enables partners to grow and differentiate their businesses in the long-term. The program focuses on unique specializations, giving partners the flexibility to certify in one or more based on their current capabilities and future aspirations.
This further differentiates partners and highlights the true value of a channel ecosystem by enabling the development of diverse business models; simplifying and increasing transparency for requirements & benefits; capturing new business through market recognition and competitive differentiation; and strengthening channel-centric practices.
On the new partner program announcement, Sachin Bhalla, Vice President and Country General Manager, Secure Power Division, India and SAARC, said, “At Schneider Electric, we believe that data is our most important asset in an increasingly connected world. The mySchneider IT Partner Program is one of many such enabling technologies that will assist our partners in efficiently leveraging data for enhanced profitability and sustainability. We are certain that our IT enablement solutions will play a significant role in shaping the IT ecosystem’s future for decades to come.”
Over the past ten years, members of Schneider Electric’s IT channel program have reaped strong benefits including discounts, tools and innovative offers from Schneider Electric and its flagship APC brand. Partners participating in the evolved program will stay agile amid today’s evolving market trends, and in turn, produce approximately eight times higher revenue.
Availability of specializations will roll out over the next 12-18 months, through a phased approach including IT Solution Providers, Data Center Solution Providers and Software & Services Providers. The first specialization, IT Solution Provider, which is ideal for IT providers who are experts in IT infrastructure solutions within distributed IT environments, is available now.
The mySchneider IT Partner Program is easy to navigate, with a simplified structure which allows partners to be more agile, relevant, profitable and future-ready.
NIRAV SHAH
VP & CTO Forcepoint India Innovation Center
PROFILE A highly energetic and dynamic product management leader, Nirav focuses on network and cloud security initiatives that help accelerate digital transformation of distributed enterprises.
ZERO TRUST IS THE WAY FORWARD FOR BUSINESSES DODGING CYBERATTACKS
Over the last two years, work has transitioned rapidly to remote and hybrid modes. Hackers embraced this move and profited from flaws and vulnerabilities in organisations’ security architecture. In 2021, corporate networks saw a 50% increase in cyberattacks per week compared to the previous year, for example. Cybercriminals targeting business-critical and sensitive data, such as personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual property (IP), and financial data, are keenly aware of how today’s cloud environments can be ideal targets.
The way modern organisations operate means that legacy security approaches aren’t good enough. The boundary between an organisation’s network and the outside world is no longer as clearly defined. Data is constantly being shared, stored and accessed from all kinds of locations. With so much happening in cloud-based environments, the way organisations manage their cybersecurity and network security needs to evolve. Zero Trust is one approach that helps them face up to this new reality.
Understanding Zero Trust Security
Zero Trust is a network security concept based on the idea of ‘never trust, always verify’. No one individual or device in an organisation’s network should be allowed access to documents or data until they have been verified. No one is above this robust authentication and authorisation process, and any device and person must satisfy this whenever they seek access to part of a network or specific files.
Part of a Zero Trust philosophy can include UEBA (user and entity behaviour analytics). By continuously monitoring network activity, and how users are interacting with data, a baseline of ‘normal’ activity is established. If there is a sudden change in that behaviour from normal patterns it can be flagged for someone to more closely monitor and increase security provisions as needed.
For instance, let us take a scenario where an employee who usually signs in from Mumbai, India, is suddenly attempting to access company data from Istanbul, Turkey. UEBA would identify this abnormality in the employee’s behaviour and flag it. The employee may be served with an authentication challenge to verify their identity, even if their username and password were submitted successfully.
Zero Trust takes security a step further from traditional perimeter-based security as it is locationagnostic. Even if attackers gain access to a company’s network, it doesn’t automatically mean all data and applications are up for grabs, because further authentication is required.
Many firms allow far too many processes to operate openly on the network, making them easy targets for hackers hunting for enterprise networks with the bare minimum of security. Since the network is accessible for everyone inside the company, anyone can share information, which is concerning. Risks don’t just come from external actors, but insider threats too, as difficult as that may be for an organisation to face up to. A Zero Trust network is flexible enough to accommodate for these realities.
How can organisations benefit from Zero Trust
The best solution in a world where cybersecurity teams are struggling to keep up with the disparate tools and vendors they are juggling every day is one unified cloud service. This simplifies security, and allows distributed organisations to adapt to a hybrid workforce without putting business resources at risk. Building a zero trust philosophy into the way the corporate network and access management is designed is ideal for this.
One of the benefits of this approach is that it reduces the attack surface. With Zero Trust, users connect directly to the apps and resources they need, as opposed to entire networks. A direct connection between users and apps is established, which eliminates the possibility of lateral movement to other services and data.
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MANOJ DHANDA
Founder & CTO Microhost Cloud
PROFILE A highly energetic and dynamic product management leader, Manoj focuses on cloud infrastructure initiatives that help accelerate digital transformation of distributed enterprises. Believes Cloud-based infrastructure is not just the backbone of modern technology, it’s what drives innovation in every field. He is the Founder & CTO of Microhost.
HOW CLOUD COMPUTING IS CRUCIAL TO OUR FUTURE
The adoption rate of digitalization has increased exponentially since the pandemic and the benefits derived from cloud computing is unimaginable.
Technology has been advancing at an incredible pace in the twenty-first century. The innovative streak has come a long way from feature phones to smartphones that are highly intuitive devices capable of doing all that an ordinary man would need. A lot of what our “mobiles” can do today is owed to the genius of cloud computing. The extent of benefits derived from cloud computing is unimaginable, but a few of its advantages to society are worth discussing.
Supporting the hybrid work culture
The adoption rate of digitalization has increased exponentially since the pandemic. The idea of working remotely, which was supposed to be a temporary fix to lockdowns, has turned into reality. The escapade of work from home (WFH) has questioned the need to be on the office premises to get the job done. As per research conducted by Cisco Systems, nine out of ten people surveyed wanted to have the autonomy of choosing to work in a hybrid setting even beyond the COVID-19 situation. This is due to the flexibility provided by cloud computing, which also empowers distributed workforce to work efficiently. It even allows organization members to access data and documents from the cloud database if they have access. As a result, the latest forecasts in the field have signaled the possibility of over 90% of organizations fulfilling their infrastructure needs with a hybrid cloud environment, combining private and public clouds.
Handling the data problem
As the information captured in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT) is enormous and complex, structuring this data is impossible through edge computing due to a limited processing capability. But this data can be seamlessly handled on the cloud. Cloud computing allows for streamlining storage, structuring and accessing data remotely. The speed of computing is also enhanced with more processing power. In industries such as finance, the need to access data and execute transactions in real-time are of utmost importance. Here, the quick computing capability can flag frauds much faster. Cloud servers are also secure from physical breaches that offer great relief to the management of smaller organisations, which can save their hardware and software investment costs.
Last mile connectivity
There are many underserved people in society due to a lack of proper physical connectivity. The cloud offers an excellent opportunity to build an inclusive community by integrating these people through the cloud. Access to information, drone deliveries, WFH, navigation and a lot more could be done using cloud servers. All the data that goes to the cloud in real-time with high-speed internet (such as 5G) can help improve the communication systems in a big way. Public services can also be provided efficiently by developing smart cities through cloud networks. Analyzing data through cloud computing is a cakewalk given the remote management possibilities and the transformation from a support to a production system.
Tool to manage climate change
An industry cloud is being innovated by Huawei that allows multiple clouds to work simultaneously in a digital ecosystem and have the ability to interact distinctly across departments. The services industry, especially the creator economy, relies heavily on cloud computing to process large digital media sizes. Therefore, industry cloud and on-demand cloud services are great ways to use shared resources that ultimately help in minimising the carbon footprint. Electric vehicles can also use cloud computing to train AI for autonomous driving on the roads. The software updates can be pushed through the cloud to the systems, which will not require as much physical maintenance as traditional legacy fuel-engine vehicles, nor will it cause that much pollution.
Summing up
The use-cases of cloud computing are endless, and so is the process of evolution, it seems. As around six billion people are expected to inhabit urban spaces by 2045, the need for even faster computing will increase unfathomably. The time is ripe for organizations to adopt the cloud infrastructure to not miss out on the competition.
