Take-aways from the 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways

By Atri Chatterjee, CMO, Zscaler

Today's smart enterprises, regardless of size, should be looking at a Secure Web Gateway (SWG) as part of their defense-in-depth security strategy. In Gartner’s opinion, if you aren’t using an SWG, you are in all likelihood leaving a hole in your enterprise security strategy. Firewalls – previous, current or next generation – are not enough because they do not provide the level of protection needed. This includes deep content inspection of all web traffic including inspecting encrypted (SSL) traffic, data leak prevention (DLP) and application control.

Now once you’ve decided to deploy SWG technology or are looking to upgrade or refresh your existing SWG environment, it’s important for security practitioners to consider various deployment options: appliance, cloud or hybrid. In Gartner’s words:

"The market for secure web gateway solutions is still dominated by traditional on-premises appliances. However, cloud-based services continue to grow at a faster rate than appliances, leaving many vendors struggling to adapt."

They go on to estimate that cloud-based SWG security is growing at a significantly higher rate than that of traditional appliance based security – 35% CAGR for cloud based solutions compared to 6% for on-premises appliances. So it should be no surprise that cloud-based solutions play an important role in Gartner's 2016 Magic Quadrant for SWG.

With this in mind, I recently sat down with the Cloud Security Alliance’s (CSA) Founder and CEO Jim Reavis to talk about the results presented in Gartner's SWG Magic Quadrant, the role of SWG in enterprise security, and what the future holds in store for security. In the event you missed our webcast, you can listen to it here.

About Zscaler

Zscaler is revolutionizing Internet security with the industry’s first Security as a Service platform. As the most innovative firm in the $35 billion security market, Zscaler is used by more than 5,000 leading organizations, including 50 of the Fortune 500. Zscaler ensures that more than 15 million users worldwide are protected against cyber attacks and data breaches while staying fully compliant with corporate and regulatory policies.

Zscaler is a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader for Secure Web Gateways and delivers a safe and productive Internet experience for every user, from any device and from any location — 100% in the cloud. With its multi-tenant, distributed cloud security platform, Zscaler effectively moves security into the internet backbone, operating in more than 100 data centers around the world and enabling organizations to fully leverage the promise of cloud and mobile computing with unparalleled and uncompromising protection and performance.