SonicWall sees ‘Capture Cloud Platform’ as key offering for the channel in 2019

Debashish Mukherjee, Country Director, India & SAARC, SonicWall, shares the company’s channel strategies for 2019

Key highlights 2018 and opportunities for 2019
Last year resulted in a significant year for both the industry and SonicWall, as new channel trends and industry shifts presented areas of opportunity and growth. In 2018, we built upon our SMB leadership and announced our expansion into the enterprise space. In 2019, we look forward to bolstering our portfolio, equipping our SMB and enterprise customers with enhanced capabilities across our cloud-based platform. With more than 500,000 organisations deploying SonicWall in their networks, it’s imperative for us to continue to ensure protection in more than one million networks we serve in over 215 countries and territories.

With a future-thinking mindset, 2019 will be a year of focus on the enterprise for SonicWall. We foresee that companies will become more aware of threats and revisit their compliance and security frameworks as the conscious requirement to be ahead of the curve becomes of increased importance across the industry. This shift will trigger a virtuous cycle of new realisations, inspiring new demands and industry solutions.

In the new year, we predict that organisations will be more inclined to adopt security measures as attacks affecting the threat landscape continue to increase across networks in the channel. With this realisation, businesses will need to consider allocating a financial scope for cyber security tactics as it becomes imperative to for organisations to allocate spending to awards security investments due to the uncertainty of an impending breach or massive attack. It’s unfortunate, but it often takes a catastrophic event for CISOs to receive the necessary funds needed for adequate defences.

However, we predict companies will start dismantling traditional setups. To this point, SonicWall is working to replace patchwork systems that are deemed far outdated, often using obsolete software and hardware, which are no longer supported. We’re eager to deliver capabilities that will simplify deployment processes and unify security governance, compliance and risk management from a single pane of glass.

Top tech trends for channel community
Real-time capability will become critical. PortSmash is the latest example of how researchers are demonstrating cyber criminals’ ability to use the very architecture of processor chips to gain access to sensitive and often highly valued information. Along with its predecessors – Meltdown, Spectre and Foreshadow – these attacks are leveraging side-channels to ‘pick locks’ within highly secured personal computers or even third-party clouds undetected.

Prior to these attacks being made public, we were already developing Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection (RTDMI) technology which proactively protects customers against processor-based exploits as well as PDF and Office exploits never seen before. Given the increase in the number of these attacks and the severity they pose, we will continue to work hard to stay ahead of these threats with our RTDMI technology to identify and mitigate threats through deep memory inspection, all in real time.

Another trend will be Unified Control. Patchwork Systems, for whatever reasons they are left in place – budget, changes within an IT department, operational risks of updates – legacy systems are something we anticipate customers will continue to struggle with. They continue to leave companies susceptible to attack when upgrades are available at low prices and zero-touch deployment. There will be concentrated focus on unifying command and control functions for risk management, governance and compliance from a single point.

Futhermore, selecting a vendor with a layered security approach helps lower the cost of servicing customers, freeing capital that can be reinvested into the business. This type of flexibility drives connectivity across the enterprise environment providing organisations with guaranteed protection.

Channel directions for partners
This year, we expect our Capture Cloud Platform to be key offering for the channel as it continues to aid organisations in mitigating malware, ransomware, phishing attacks and other threats with real-time cyber threat intelligence. In the cyber arms race, intelligence is key to not only knowing who your adversary is but, making a quick and educated decision in how to thwart their efforts. With over two decades of industry-leading innovation and expertise, this platform will ensure that organizations can defend themselves from whatever new attacks 2019 may have in store for them.

Our partners must focus on staying up-to-date and investing a lot of time and effort to really know their customers.

In light of the rapidly changing industry, it’s imperative for partners to remain on track with new offerings, product enhancement, and service updates. This in turn will bolster partners’ ability to be thought leaders and game changers in the ever-evolving security landscape.

At SonicWall, we believe that understanding your customers’ needs is vital to ensuring that they are, and will remain, fully protected. By staying at the forefront of today’s industry, partners can better predict customer challenges, address needs and recommend investments to help support customer initiatives, sometimes before problems even arise.