Barracuda Networks Extends Cybersecurity and Data Protection Portfolio
At the Secured.22 virtual conference, Barracuda Networks announced it has added a range of capabilities that collectively tighten integration across its portfolio of cybersecurity and backup and recovery platforms.
Brian Babineau, chief customer officer at Barracuda Networks, said the overall goal is to make it simpler to enforce zero-trust access policies and, in the event of a security breach, to enable organizations to recover faster.
That combination of platforms from a single vendor also serves to reduce the total cost of cybersecurity and data protection compared to point products from multiple vendors that are not as tightly integrated, he added.
Updates to the Barracuda Networks portfolio include web security capabilities added to Barracuda CloudGen Access, a secure access service edge (SASE) platform based on a firewall. The platform now includes DNS-based web security policies, user and group-based policies and reporting tools, time and location-based policies and reporting tools, local inspection capabilities to improve performance, continuous threat intelligence updates and support for additional remote user/work-from-home capabilities.
The company has also integrated its extended detection and response (XDR) platform with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall.
Finally, Barracuda Email Protection can now further harden Microsoft 365 environments by continuously verifying and only allowing the right users access; the Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup platform is now available via the Microsoft Azure marketplace.
It’s not clear how much the need to depend on backup and recovery tools to combat ransomware has changed the way larger enterprise IT organizations approach data protection. Historically, data protection software and services have been managed separately by an IT operations team while cybersecurity teams have managed security platforms. However, cybersecurity teams are starting to exercise more influence over data protection platforms. Those platforms now play a key role in enabling organizations to recover a pristine copy of their data in the event of a ransomware attack. Within smaller organizations, of course, backup and recovery tools and cybersecurity platforms are typically managed by one integrated team.
Regardless of approach, it’s clear ransomware has driven increased demand for data protection platforms. Barracuda Networks today revealed data protection revenues have grown 30% year-over-year at the end of its second quarter. The company now claims to have more than 40,000 customers that rely on it to protect more than 180 petabytes of data in the cloud.
Going forward, it’s not clear how many organizations will continue to manage data protection and cybersecurity on their own versus opting to rely on a managed services provider (MSP). As IT environments continue to become more complex, more organizations are realizing they can’t keep pace with the rate of change without relying on additional external expertise, noted Babineau.
Many of those organizations also require much faster recovery times from ransomware attacks than what might be achieved by relying solely on an internal IT team, he added.
Data protection and cybersecurity have become boardroom-level issues in the ransomware era, so the level of attention being paid to the way IT teams manage these platforms has never been higher. The challenge, as always, is finding a way to ensure the highest level of security possible without breaking the bank.
