In the recently released 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways (SWG) report, Netskope was recognized as a visionary, entering a decades-old legacy security solution area first defined by proxy cache appliances. Times have changed since human rating labs, regional web filtering lists, the use of ICAP for threat and data protection of files, web object caching, bandwidth management, and scripting policies to filter out undesired web objects.

The maturation of software development has been driven by the increasing segmentation of functions into their own portable environments. Infrastructure is splintered into dozens of computing resources, physical servers, containers, databases, Kubernetes pods, dashboards, etc. Such compartmentalization has made it incredibly simple for developers to enter their desired environments with minimal disruption to other working parts.

As businesses try to create a contactless experience amid the coronavirus pandemic, many have turned to QR codes. We’re seeing a lot of restaurants using them to display their menus on smartphones and on receipts for a contactless pay option. Within popular apps like Snapchat and WhatsApp, QR codes are an integral part of the user experience. Users can use codes to sign into their account, exchange contact information and make money transfer.

Your business relies on third-party APIs to operate. Sometimes they enhance your capabilities, and other times they bridge the gap between your business and where your customers are through integrations. Either way, the intermingling of data and services between your business and these third-party vendors can put your business at risk. When it comes to ensuring these providers are handling data securely, SOC 2 has become one of the most common security frameworks for tech companies.

We are certainly in unique times, with COVID driving digital transformation at an unprecedented pace, remote work appearing to be long term, and the specter of new threats looming over security professionals as they strategized how to protect a rapidly changing business and tech landscape. To use perhaps one too many cliches: it is the best of times, it is the worst of times, the times are a changin’, and a change will do you good. No really, it will.

We at Netskope Threat Labs have published a series of blogs detailing the misconfigurations in cloud apps causing data exposure. Misconfiguration and sensitive data exposure have been listed as predominant top 10 OWASP security risks for years, and are now also the predominant cause of cloud data breaches.

There is no shortage of IT cloud software services out there for businesses to choose from. Regardless of their business needs you can be sure there will be a myriad of solutions. Instead of a few grand does-it-all services, IT has become a swarm of inter-playing, inter-operating, and interconnecting services. It’s no surprise that services like zapier and IFTTT are thriving in this ecosystem where they can become the glue and automate the gap between them. The future is surely bright.