By Byron V. Acohido

Web browser security certainly hasn’t been lacking over the past 25 years.

Related: Island valued at $3.5 billion

Advancements have included everything from sandboxing and web applications firewalls (WAFs,) early on, to secure web gateways (SWGs) and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDIs,) more recently.

Yet profound browser exposures persist — and this has led to the arrival of  enterprise browsers, which will be in the spotlight as Black Hat USA 2024 gets underway next week in Las Vegas.

I recently visited with Uy Huynh, vice president of solutions engineering, at Dallas, Tex.-based Island, the pioneer and leading enterprise browser.

We discussed why enterprise browsers may be in the early stages of revolutionizing how businesses operate in the cloud-driven world. For a full drill down, please give the accompanying podcast a listen.

You’ll learn, as I did, why enterprise browsers are not just another incremental improvement. By embedding user authentication, data protections, robotic process automation, and workflow integration directly into an enterprise browser companies can reduce complexity while improving speed and productivity, Huynh explains.

In effect, this approach extends threat detection and policy enforcement to the presentation layer; each person taps into company assets via a highly capable, flexible browser that’s simpler for the company to manage with dexterity.

Huynh walked me through examples where Island’s browser has replaced cumbersome VDI implementations, complex data loss prevention policies and helped to streamline  M&A deals. “With an enterprise browser, you access applications natively and directly, removing latency and significantly boosting productivity,” says Huynh.

Will enterprise browsers become central to IT and security infrastructures? I’ll keep watch and keep reporting.

Acohido

Pulitzer Prize-winning business journalist Byron V. Acohido is dedicated to fostering public awareness about how to make the Internet as private and secure as it ought to be.

(LW provides consulting services to the vendors we cover.)

July 31st, 2024