Security vendors gear up to tap market potentials

Although economic slowdown and rupee depreciation adversely impacted IT industry in 2013, the Unified Threat Management (UTMs) and Firewall market remained robust by vividly highlighting the need and future prospects of network security in enterprise and SMB segment in India. Today the enterprises seek security for its critical applications, sensitive electronic data and complex computing infrastructure. Rise in adoption of mobile, social and cloud technologies have created the need for more proactive and context-based approach to managing security. With cyber attackers adopting advance technologies for cyber crimes, simple firewall are proving unable to adequately protect an organization. They require intelligent NGFW and UTM to provide secure gateway and internal firewalling with security enabled. To address the critical issues in enterprise security space, Security vendors are now changing their approaches by going  beyond traditional network security features and adding next generation technologies to their offerings that make the enterprise security solutions compatible to address modern security threats.

 Booming market of UTMs and Firewalls

The UTMs and firewall market has become one of the largest security markets in India and it is expected to demonstrate significant growth in near future. Currently, Indian SMBs contribute nearly one-third of the UTM market revenue of all India businesses. According to survey of Access Markets International (AMI), UTM market projected to grow more than 16% over the next two years. India Firewall Market Tracker said that the Indian firewall market shipments value reached $7.1 million in CY Q1 2014.  The biggest growth drivers for UTM have been the rapid internet adaption and increase in security awareness among SMBs. To compete in the highly contested UTM and firewall market in India, vendor are introducing innovative technologies and incurring additional expenditure on firewall up gradation.

Trends in UTMs and Firewall space

The fast-evolving information security market is leading the changing trends in the types of security solutions enterprises require. Considering increasing number of cyber threats and rising enterprise demand for mobility, vendors are now offering advance UTM appliances. UTM has extended its reach across SMBs, mid-market and enterprises. At present, UTM products embrace the feature set of many other network security solutions, including Next-generation firewalls (NGFWs), secure Web gateway and secure email gateway. Among all NGFWs have potential to dramatically change the network security landscape. As traditional firewalls primarily focus on limiting access based on ports and protocols, enterprises are rapidly moving toward NGFW for complete network security.

Jitendra Ghughal, National Channel Manager, India & SAARC, Fortinet

Jitendra Ghughal, National Channel Manager, India & SAARC, Fortinet said, “As security threats evolve, network security professionals expect NGFWs to provide both security and efficiencies beyond what they can expect from traditional firewalls.”

“Customers want gateways that fight advanced threats, like zero-day malware and that respond to new cybercriminal tactics, such as encrypting payloads or stolen data inside of an SSL tunnel.  Therefore, advanced threat prevention, sandboxing and more are becoming the norm in this new generation of NGFWs, with an emphasis on security effectiveness and performance above all else,” he said.

Security vendors partnering with managed security service providers (MSSPs) and offering security solutions to organizations in the region through the model of outsourcing is another market trend in India.

Dharmesh Relwani, Sales head of Immunity and Network Private Limited said, “Security vendors partnering with MSSPs is a market demand. This consolidation of partnership between MSSPs and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in is likely to drive the network security market.”

Network virtualization is another key feature that is now being bundled with UTM solutions by few vendors.  Scott Robertson, Vice President, APAC, WatchGuard said, “Enterprise customers require constant monitoring and updating of policies to create effective defense mechanisms.  Sophisticated visualization tools, such as WatchGuard Dimension provide IT with the necessary data to make effective policy decisions and improve network performance.”

Sonit Jain, Founder & CEO of GajShield

Similarly, Data loss and leak prevention is becoming a standard feature that UTM vendors are bundling with their products.  Sonit Jain, Founder & CEO of GajShield said, “GajShield is a unique Data Leak Prevention based Next Generation Firewall appliance which provide complete visibility into various threats and performance inhibitors allowing organization to make informed and proactive security measure, offering comprehensive gateway security against external and insider threats to an organizations.”

“Our Context Sensitive based Data Leak Prevention system understands web applications by assigning context to data flow, which helps an enterprise to setup policies based on the context instead of ip addresses, usernames that have no relevance to the these applications. Using this unique technology, enterprise can create policies to limit access to various web applications, including social media, web-mail for business use”, he said.

The BYOD factor

The rising trend of using smart phones, tablet PCs, and other mobile devices across the enterprises is posing serious threat to enterprise security. Multiple access devices and touch points have given hackers more options for entering corporate networks, without being easily detected. A recent Gartner report points out that increasing adoption of a more mobile, social, data-driven and consumer-like workplace is causing the breakdown of traditional security models and strategies. Security organizations and leaders that fail to alter strategies to accommodate a more consumerized workforce will soon be sidelined, predicts the report.

Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) in its recent survey on proliferation of the BYOD (Bring your own device) at the Indian workplace, cautioned that a majority of security incidents arise from employee use of IT assets on the company network or using company IT assets for personal use.

Therefore, there is a need to adopt a new approach to managing security - one that is more proactive, sensitive and context-based. Networking vendors are expanding their portfolios to address the BYOD factor. They have come up with network security solutions that are designed specifically for bring-your-own-device (BYOD).

Opportunity for the Channel

Vendors believe that channel is the best way to tap the broadening opportunity in small businesses and ROBOs in UTMs and firewall space. Vendors are taking various initiatives to update and upgrade their partners to grab maximum share in untapped network security market in the country.

Yuvraj Pradhan, SE Lead - India, McAfee said, “From a channel partner perspective the future is bright in terms of the market potential for firewall. This is especially true for NGFWs since partners are able to engage with customers using one product to solve several problems. While this is applicable across the spectrum of customers, we anticipate that uptake in the SMB sector will be high given the multiple capabilities it offers.”

Sunil Sharma, VP Sales & Operations, India & SAARC, Cyberoam

Cyberoam helps its partners to adjust to market trends and shifts in a timely manner, giving them a wide range of benefits, incentives and skills to change with evolving customer and market needs. Sunil Sharma, VP Sales & Operations, India & SAARC, Cyberoam said, “We are proud for being a channel-driven IT security products company. We have already transitioned a significant number of channel partners into network security service providers, evolving their business beyond box selling. We are taking these opportunities to partners and prospects in tier 2, tier 3 towns, cities and other emerging locations.

Considering the business growth in B, C and D Class cities, Fortinet has consciously decided to increase channel focus on smaller cities. Jitendra Ghughal, National Channel Manager, India & SAARC, Fortinet said, “There is an increased interest from partners in smaller cities after they see our value proposition as a security player in the metros.  Partners carry Fortinet’s entire portfolio—irrespective of the verticals they target. We have come a long way from UTM. Our partners have multiple business opportunities today be it the next-gen firewall space, WAN optimization, secured wireless routers, WAF, DDOS, and APT.”

Enterprise Security a need for an hour

With advancement in technology, the cyber attacks have become sophisticated. On the other hand, the increased mobility, diverse user-base, internal security threats, and regulatory requirements, has become complex. Additionally, recent adoption of virtualization, cloud computing, and mobility in the enterprise networks have already attracted new security threats increasing the demand for UTMs and firewall in the ever changing security environment in India. With internet penetration continue to grow in future network security will be focused topic of enterprises. Therefore, network security players can forecast huge business growth and prospects in the enterprise security space in India in coming years.