Skyhigh Networks, a provider of cloud
discovery, analysis and control services, recently announced general
availability of its new platform at RSA that allows enterprises to know exactly
which cloud services their employees use and the risk those services may pose. To
find out more, I spoke with the company's CEO and founder, Rajiv Gupta.
VMblog: Tell me more about Skyhigh
Networks and your recent news announcement.
Rajiv Gupta: Skyhigh Networks is all
about enabling employees to use cloud services in a safe way. Our services are completely
"zero touch." We require no software or hardware installation and enterprises
can even use the service with remote employees accessing the corporate network
from their own mobile devices. Following an extensive beta period with the use
of our services by several big-name pilot customers from the Fortune 500, we've
now launched the platform.
VMblog: Can you explain to us what
problem Skyhigh Networks solves?
Gupta: Today companies face a real problem
with what is referred to as "Shadow IT." Employees go around corporate IT
departments and start using various cloud services without the knowledge of
their IT departments, leaving those departments in the dark about what is
happening in their enterprises. All the CIOs and CISOs I spoke with thought
that their employees were using less than 40 cloud services, but in all of
their enterprises we found that they were using over 200 cloud services, in some cases over 1,000 cloud services.
The problem here is that not all of
those services are safe. For example, some cloud services have onerous license
agreements that busy employees will often not read and others store user data
in such a way as can be easily hacked by dangerous third-parties. Skyhigh
enables CIOs and CISOs to see which cloud services their employees are using
and what the risks associated with those services are. We give them tools that
in just three clicks allow them to take immediate corrective action.
VMblog: And how does Skyhigh Networks work?
Gupta: Our clients simply send us their
log files. Clients even have the option to "tokenize" their log files so that
nothing they deem sensitive will be transmitted. From there it takes us les
than half an hour to give our clients a report informing them of how many cloud
services their enterprise is using and the risk levels of those services.
Using Skyhigh over time, we give
clients an idea of what anomalous use of, even safe, cloud services looks like.
We do this by building long-term behavioral models of what typical cloud
service usage looks like, using a proprietary hadoop processing engine. For
example, if I know that "Gary" generally only looks at 10 Salesforce contacts
per day but all of a sudden I see that he has downloaded 200 Salesforce
contacts I want to flag that. While it may not be a problem, "Gary" could be
about to walk out the door and take valuable contact information with him. Lastly,
Skyhigh provides encryption services such that employees can feel comfortable
using services like Dropbox knowing that their data is secure. I also want to
emphasize again that Skyhigh Networks' services are completely "zero
touch." We are a cloud-based service and require no hardware or software
installation in order to operate. There is no impact on the user experience
with any of these services. And we don't require an agent to run on remote
mobile devices.
VMblog: How is Skyhigh Networks
different from other solutions in the market?
Gupta: Quite simply nobody is currently
offering the services which Skyhigh Networks is offering, certainly not on the
discovery and analysis side where we are able to tell customers how many cloud
services they are using and what risks those cloud services may pose. While some
companies offer part of what we are offering on the control or enablement side,
such as encryption services, nobody is able to offer this as a complete
package.
VMblog: And who uses Skyhigh Networks'
Services?
Gupta: Skyhigh Networks is used by many
mid to large enterprises from backgrounds as diverse as financial services,
manufacturing, technology, law, and healthcare. Our goal as a company is to get
to the point where every enterprise using cloud services will want to use
Skyhigh Networks.
VMblog: How will Skyhigh Networks
ensure that it can continuously deliver a valuable and reliable service?
Gupta: Skyhigh Networks is a platform
that learns - we are not a static company. Today we have risk profiles
assessing more than 30 parameters on more than 2,000 services with more added
daily. Over time our services will only become more valuable as we develop a
registry of an increasing number of cloud services complete with descriptions,
risk assessments, and, if necessary, suggestions for alternative services with
higher security.
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Thanks again to Rajiv Gupta,
CEO and Founder of Skyhigh Networks for taking time out to speak with VMblog
and answer a few questions.