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Cloud-based security is on the rise. As organisations grapple with the ongoing challenges of a distributed workforce, the demand for robust, flexible security solutions has never been greater.

Bud Elitch, the Australia and New Zealand Country Manager for Zscaler, recently shared insights on how organisations are adapting their IT security strategies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Zscaler, a company specialising in cloud-delivered security as a service, has been at the forefront of this shift, providing solutions for secure cloud transformation and the move from on-premise systems to public cloud environments.

"Our core offering is about that secure cloud transformation and enabling customers to move their workloads from on premises into public cloud securely," Elitch explained. He noted that Zscaler's services are designed to simplify what has traditionally been a complex transition. "We provide that whole network transformation, security transformation and application transformation," he said.

Central to the Zscaler platform are two key capabilities: Zscaler Internet Access and Zscaler Private Access. "Zscaler Internet Access ensures users are protected – keeping the good in, keeping the bad out," Elitch said. This suite provides features from web gateways and firewalls to data loss prevention and cloud access security brokering, recreating the traditional security stack in the cloud and making it accessible globally. "We're providing that as a cloud service across the world, with over 150 points of presence and capabilities in 180 different countries," he added.

Zscaler Private Access, meanwhile, is tailored for remote workers accessing applications, whether those applications are housed on premises or in the public cloud. Elitch described this as a zero trust network access solution, stating, "It provides the same user experience as if a customer was on premise, allowing them to securely access their applications wherever they're hosted."

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been significant, accelerating the move to remote work and placing new demands on security infrastructure. "This environment has changed – obviously, with COVID it has changed the priorities for a lot of IT security managers," Elitch said. He highlighted the challenges organisations faced when remote access, once provisioned only for a small subset of users, suddenly needed to be made available to entire workforces.

"Our National Australia Bank is a large reference customer of ours. They had provided remote access for five to six thousand users at any one time, and when COVID hit, providing access to all your users was a significant challenge," Elitch recalled. However, traditional virtual private networks (VPNs) posed problems, from scalability to security vulnerabilities. "Doing that using traditional VPNs is an issue because you need to build additional infrastructure on-premise to accommodate that, and it's not as secure – there are vulnerabilities in the traditional VPN infrastructure," he said.

Zero trust network access emerged as a clear solution. "In our NAB example, they're able to provide it for 30,000 users in a three to four-week period, which using traditional methods of a VPN wouldn't have been possible," Elitch explained. "Not only providing access to all the users immediately, but also providing improved security in the way that they're accessing their data and applications remotely – that's a key capability that a lot of security people are challenged with in this current environment."

Beyond the effects of the pandemic, organisations are also prioritising accelerated cloud adoption. "They need to focus on removing as much infrastructure and applications out of on-premise and into public clouds, and as a result, they need to change the way that they do their security in that new cloud world," he said.

When asked about the trends shaping Zscaler's product development, Elitch pointed to a continued and deepening focus on zero trust principles. "The focus is predominantly and heavily on zero trust – zero trust network access from users remotely accessing back-end applications and data, but likewise, now we're focused on zero trust between even applications within the public cloud environment," he said. This means improving security not just between users and applications, but between the applications themselves, regardless of where they are running.

Elitch also referenced the growing relevance of secure access service edge, or SASE, a framework identified by analysts for integrating networking and security functions cloud-natively. "Gartner coins the term SASE – secure access service edge – which is effectively allowing users and organisations to provide secure access to their applications irrespective of location and with the easiest access to it," Elitch said. He offered the example of users travelling overseas and the inefficiency of routing their application traffic through a distant data centre. "Implementing that SASE model – which we're one of the clear market leaders in providing – simplifies this enormously and improves security at the same time," he said.

As for Zscaler's infrastructure in Australia and New Zealand, the company boasts data centre presences in both Sydney and Melbourne, as well as Auckland in New Zealand. Elitch added, "We have a couple of other private Zscaler networks for some larger customers as well."

Reflecting the surge in demand for cloud security, Zscaler's team in the region has expanded rapidly. "The team has grown significantly, particularly in the last couple of years – we've more than doubled our head count to over 40 people," Elitch said. He attributes this growth to the accelerating adoption of cloud by organisations, noting, "As organisations move more and more workloads to public cloud, they're leveraging a cloud-based security platform, and we are one of the clear market leaders."

When it comes to engaging with Zscaler, Elitch was clear: "In order, if anyone's interested and wants to contact us – more than happy for them to reach out directly to myself or any one of the team, 40-odd people here in Australia," he said.

As the conversation drew to a close, Elitch offered a succinct summary of the company's mission. "We provide secure cloud transformation so customers can move to the cloud with confidence," he said.