Today’s enterprises have faced many challenges with the pace of change over the last few years because of digital transformation, and the need for that transformation to be resilient and secure. These challenges have been amplified by the disruption of the global pandemic.

There have been massive global macro-economic shifts that have fundamentally changed the way companies operate, from the rise of remotely working employees to the adjustments of customer engagement strategies. Remote work was in full swing before the pandemic and it already had an impact on IT strategy and the shift to cloud, including hybrid cloud. This trend has only accelerated due to the ease of remote deployment and accessibility of software, SaaS, and cloud options. With all these changes, the specter of security breaches is high. This explains the rise and popularity of Zero Trust as a framework for securing networks in these new realities and as an effective tool to drive cybersecurity initiatives within the entire enterprise.

Paul Nicholson, Sr. Director of Product Marketing, A10 Networks

All this means that in a post-pandemic era, digital resilience is a top priority and cyber threats are only accelerating. As a result, we are witnessing a broad spectrum of concerns as enterprise organizations look to shore up their defenses.

Analyzing the events of the last two years, it is an ideal time to explore enterprise perceptions about the future. To gain these insights, we surveyed 2,425 senior application and network professionals from ten regions around the globe. Not surprisingly, we found high levels of concern around all aspects of digital transformation solutions and resilience with a strong focus on business continuity. The top findings we uncovered included:

Private Clouds are the Preferred Enterprise IT Environment

Even though we witnessed a rapid pivot to cloud in the last couple of years, plenty of on-premises environments remain. Twenty-three percent of respondents have retained an on-premises environment and this is unlikely to change in the future. Private clouds were the preferred environment for 30 percent of respondents, while just under one quarter said their environment was in a public cloud with a similar percentage in SaaS environments.

New Working Patterns and Digitalization Prompt Rethinking the Strategy

Resilience is a board-level discussion as senior leaders look to ensure that the business can cope with any future disruption. Our enterprise respondents said that digital transformation solutions, business continuity (technically and organizationally), and stronger security requirements have all become paramount. This puts tremendous pressure on IT professionals to rethink their architectures and IT strategies to meet the challenge.

Asked to rate their concern about 11 different aspects of business resilience, nine out of 10 respondents expressed some level of concern about every issue. The top concerns were around the challenge of optimizing security tools to ensure competitive advantage, utilizing IT resources in the cloud, and enabling remote access and hybrid working while ensuring that staff feels supported in whatever work style they wish to adopt.

Top Cyber Threat Concerns for Enterprise IT

Without a doubt, the escalating threat landscape is causing a broad array of concerns from respondents. Chief among them is the loss of sensitive assets and data followed by the disruptive impact of downtime or network lockdown. In response, there was an evident shift to a Zero Trust security approach. One-third (30%) of enterprise organizations said that they had already adopted a Zero Trust model.

There is unlikely to be any relief from the pressures for enterprises and their IT practitioners, whether in infrastructure or security domains. We will be dealing with the impact of these recent pandemic-related changes for years to come, including the continuing integration of newer technologies and evolving standards. Therefore, IT organizations must continue to invest in modern technologies that support ongoing digital transformation initiatives but strike the balance between strong Zero Trust defense and operational agility for their multifaceted digital resiliency needs.

Speak about the partnership that Check Point Software can offer to enterprises in their digital transformation journey

At Check Point Software we aim to extend architectural assistance to organizations to support their development of a proper strategy for this journey. Check Point Software understands that cloud transformation is a complex undertaking, and knows the value our customers place in our architectural workshops. Because of this, Check Point Software offers a Cloud Transformation Security Consultancy service designed specifically around cloud transformation. This service provides an efficient and thorough platform for transitioning corporate security programs to a digital future. Our advisors help customers understand the security design patterns of multiple cloud use cases (Public/Private IaaS, security of cloud, and through cloud, and many more).

Ram Narayanan, Country Manager at Check Point Software – ME

Discuss the role of cloud and its services in digital transformation

Cloud adoption has grown rapidly in recent years. While many organizations were already moving to the cloud, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this transition. With the normalization of remote work, companies needed to be able to support and provide critical services to their off-site workforce. As a result, over 98% of organizations use some form of cloud-based infrastructure, and over three-quarters (76%) have multi-cloud deployments composed of services from two or more cloud providers. These cloud environments host critical business applications and store sensitive company and customer data.

Some of the key benefits from moving to the cloud include:

• Shifting business models from Capex to Opex, so that companies pay only for what they use, be it IaaS, PaaS or SaaS.
• Scalability, where computing, network, and storage capacities can be increased
• Agility, where developers can make continuous improvements
• High availability, disaster recovery, and redundancy are improved by cloud vendors

How do you distinguish between Check Point Software and its competitors in offering cyber protection?

Check Point Software Technologies provides cyber security solutions to corporate enterprises and governments globally. The company’s solutions protect customers against Gen V, zero-day attacks with an industry leading catch rate of malware, ransomware and advanced targeted threats. Check Point Software’s Gen V protection is focused on attack prevention, to stop attacks from even entering networks, and speed of response. We address organizations’ most imminent cyber security needs based on three core principles:

• Prevention-first approach: It deploys pre-emptive user protections to eliminate threats before they reach the users
• Gold Standard Management: Single pane of glass to manage the entire security estate
• Consolidated Solution: A unified cybersecurity approach that strengthens defenses while improving agility against all forms of attack

Elaborate on the opportunities of SMEs and large enterprises while choosing to transform digital applications and devices

Digital transformation empowers organizations to expand business opportunities, increase profitability and efficiency, while reducing operational costs. However, digital transformation can also expose enterprises to a variety of vulnerabilities and challenges that if not properly addressed could result in financial loss, identity theft, and leakage of private and sensitive information.

Tell us about the anti-phishing and ransomware strategies enforced by Check Point Software in favor of its customers

Phishing is one of the most talked about cyber-attack, and for a good reason. It can come in many shapes and forms, as it is constantly evolving and introducing new ways of tricking users using their biggest weakness – their human nature. Check Point Software’s anti-phishing solutions includes different products to address different attack vectors from which phishing attacks come:

• Harmony Email & Office – It deploys between the inbox and its native security
• Harmony Endpoint – Zero-Phishing identifies and blocks the use of phishing sites in real time
• Harmony Mobile – Check Point Software’s Zero-Phishing technology for mobile devices. It allows organizations to combat zero-day phishing attacks by inspecting the web page itself and making an informed determination as to whether it is a phishing site or not

Check Point Software’s Anti-Ransomware, a ransomware protection solution, protects organizations from the most sophisticated ransomware attacks, and safely recovers encrypted data, ensuring business continuity and productivity.