The 25 Hottest Edge Security Companies: 2020 Edge Computing 100

As digital transformation and COVID-19 rapidly shift users, devices, applications, services and data outside of the enterprise data center, here’s a look at 25 vendors capable of securing the Edge of tomorrow.

SASE Takes The Industry By Storm

Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE, has become all the rage since Gartner coined the phrase in an August 2019 report, with security vendors creating new executive positions and carrying out eight-figure acquisitions to strengthen their position around these emerging technologies.

SASE combines wide area networking, or WAN, with network security functions like secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), firewall as a service (FWaaS) and zero-trust network access (ZTNA) to support the dynamic secure access needs of businesses. SASE tools can identify sensitive data or malware, decrypt content at line speed, and continuously monitor sessions for risk and trust levels.

The SASE market crosses previously disparate technologies and demands that vendors be able to deliver these capabilities through the cloud on an as-a-Service basis. As a result, while many vendors have most of the necessary functionality for SASE, few are currently capable of offering the entire SASE portfolio on their own.

As digital transformation and COVID-19 rapidly shift users, devices, applications, services and data outside of the enterprise data center, here’s a look at 25 vendors capable of securing the edge of tomorrow.

ADT Cybersecurity

Greensboro, N.C.

Top Executive: Jim DeVries, President, CEO, AD

ADT Cybersecurity established a foothold in managed detection and response following its acquisitions of Datashield and Secure Designs, enabling the company to better service both enterprise and SMB customers. The company in November debuted its inaugural partner program to reward partners that grow with ADT Cybersecurity by providing them with more resources and an elevated commitment level.

Akamai

Cambridge, Mass.

Dr. Tom Leighton, Co-Founder, CEO

Akamai has been living on the edge for the past two decades, according to channel chief Micheal McCollough, vice president of channels and alliances. “For us, it’s just part of our culture. We’ve always been on the edge,” McCollough said. Its portfolio of application performance and delivery products bring optimized content to the edge, while its Zero Trust off ering is keeping it secure.

Barracuda Networks

Campbell, Calif.

Top Executive: BJ Jenkins, President, CEO

Barracuda in July debuted the first secure global SD-WAN service built natively on Microsoft Azure to optimize performance and minimize cost by replacing inflexible network connectivity circuits. The company in November purchased remote access vendor Fyde to provide employees and contractors working from home on BYOD equipment with secure access to cloud or on-premises applications and workloads.

Bitdefender

Bucharest, Romania

Top Executive: Florin Talpes, Founder, CEO

Bitdefender in July started analyzing user actions to identify behaviors that pose a security risk to the organization and allow security administrators to pinpoint systems and users with higher risk exposure. Two months later, the company rolled out a service that delivers incident detection with rapid response using automated playbooks that allow analysts to take swift action to mitigate and remediate most threats.

Bitglass

Campbell, Calif.

Top Executive: Nat Kausik, CEO

Bitglass’ SmartEdge architecture allows endpoints to carry their own on-device Secure Web Gateway and inspect all network activity for blocking threats and data leakage, simultaneously circumventing the management overhead and performance bottlenecks of competing tools. The company’s reverse proxy delivers agentless, real-time protection for any app accessed by any device, including personal devices.

Check Point Software Technologies

Tel Aviv, Israel

Top Executive: Gil Shwed, Co-Founder, CEO

Check Point CloudGuard Connect has redefined SASE by making it easy to access corporate applications, SaaS and the internet for any user or branch, from any device, without compromising on security. The company’s September acquisition of Odo Security has made working from home easier and safer by enabling customers to securely connect any number of remote employees to everything from any location.

CrowdStrike

Sunnyvale, Calif.

Top Executive: George Kurtz, Co-Founder, CEO

CrowdStrike in June partnered with Okta, Proofpoint and Netskope to assist IT teams in implementing a zero-trust strategy that uses endpoint posture as a critical piece in enabling conditional access. The company in September acquired access control and threat prevention startup Preempt Security to help customers protect identity data without compromising on productivity or the user experience.

FireEye

Milpitas, Calif.

Top Executive: Kevin Mandia, CEO

FireEye in May unveiled new modules for its endpoint security offering to block malware and exploits, detect advanced attacks, and provide support that fits an organization’s risk profile and security posture. The company in November bought Respond Software for $186 million to allow customers to quickly identify the signals of an attack, understand their adversary and respond to stop an attack before it’s too late.

Forcepoint

Herndon, Va.

Top Executive: Matthew Moynahan, CEO

Forcepoint Dynamic Edge Protection debuted in April to provide advanced web, network and application Security as a Service, eliminating gaps and redundancies to stop attackers. The company added Cloud Security Gateway and Private Access offerings in July to more fully address critical work-from-home security challenges across network security, threat protection, secure access and data protection.

Fortinet

Sunnyvale, Calif.

Top Executive: Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman, CEO

Fortinet in July purchased Opaq Networks to strengthen distributed network protection everywhere from data centers and branch offices to remote users and Internet of Things devices. Masergy embraced Fortinet’s next-generation firewalls in November to enable consistent security policies across all SD-WAN devices, security alert metrics within a single portal, and fully managed firewall services globally.

Imperva

Redwood Shores, Calif.

Top Executive: Pam Murphy, CEO

Imperva allows customers to secure data and applications on-premises and in multi-cloud environments, leveraging attack analytics to alert users to critical threats to both on-premises and cloud applications. The company agreed in October to buy Goldman Sachs-backed jSonar to create a data security powerhouse with a comprehensive portfolio of tools that protect modern data architectures.

Infoblox

Santa Clara, Calif.

Top Executive: Jesper Andersen, President, CEO

The acquisition of cloud-native network operating system provider SnapRoute has allowed Infoblox to accelerate the development and delivery of additional network services on its platform. The company’s BloxOne platform unites network and security services in a fully cloud-native and cloud-delivered offering that’s able to detect and anticipate threats sooner, stop them faster and adapt to changes.

Kaspersky

Moscow, Russia

Top Executive: Eugene Kaspersky, Co-Founder, CEO

Kaspersky has built a portfolio of subscription services around its unparalleled insight into threat actor activity and behavior to help move upmarket and capture more large deals with enterprise customers. In May, the company tasked former RSA leader Randall Richard with extending the company’s threat intelligence business beyond the Fortune 10 to address use cases in the Fortune 100 or Fortune 200.

McAfee

San Jose, Calif.

Top Executive: Peter Leav, President, CEO

McAfee’s Unified Cloud Edge means companies can define a single data protection or threat prevention policy and consistently apply the rules across the device, the network and the cloud. The company enhanced Unified Cloud Edge in October with first-of-its-kind integrated remote browser isolation technology, unified data loss prevention, and incident management across devices, networks, web and the cloud.

Netskope

Santa Clara, Calif.

Top Executive: Sanjay Beri, Founder, CEO

Netskope NewEdge takes a different approach to SD-WAN by delivering low, single-digit millisecond latency for on-ramping traffic from any users, from any device from anywhere in the world. The company in October debuted an interactive data analytics service that helps customers understand and measure risk through rich, in-depth visual dashboards, as well as reports on cloud and web use.

Okta

San Francisco

Top Executive: Todd McKinnon, Co-Founder, CEO

Okta Access Gateway leverages threat intelligence, authentication context, AI-driven security and multi-factor authentication to enhance application security and stop account takeover. The company debuted a joint offering with Palo Alto Networks in June that improves user productivity with a consistent, responsive and secure experience from any location for all applications, regardless of the device.

Palo Alto Networks

Santa Clara, Calif.

Top Executive: Nikesh Arora, Chairman, CEO

Palo Alto Networks in November agreed to purchase attack surface management vendor Expanse for $800 million to gain visibility into exposed and untracked assets in customers’ ecosystems. That same month, the company rolled out a cloud-delivered data protection service that helps prevent data breaches, facilitates regulatory compliance and inhibits risks user behavior to protect sensitive data.

RSA Security

Bedford, Mass.

Top Executive: Rohit Ghai, CEO

RSA Archer SaaS was unveiled in February to provide partners with the speed to manage risk along with the flexibility and scalability needed to navigate digital transformation in the workplace. RSA IoT Security Monitor debuted in May and consolidates information from connected devices and applies behavioral analytics, machine learning and threat intelligence to identify anomalies that indicate compromise.

SonicWall

San Jose, Calif.

Top Executive: Bill Conner, President, CEO

SonicWall unveiled SD-Branch capabilities in June to deliver single-pane-of-glass management and simplify the needs associated with distributed locations, campuses and branch offices. And Cloud Edge Secure Access’ November debut means that SonicWall customers can now control and protect network access to both managed and unmanaged devices based on identity, location and device parameters.

Sophos

Abingdon, U.K.

Top Executive: Kris Hagerman, CEO

Sophos in June enhanced its Endpoint Detection and Response tool to help security analysts identify and neutralize evasive threats, and aid IT administrators with proactively maintaining secure IT operations. Four months later, the firm debuted an industry-first, fixed-fee remote incident response service that identifies and neutralizes active cybersecurity attacks throughout the whole 45-day engagement period.

Symantec, a division of Broadcom

Mountain View, Calif.

Top Executive: Hock Tan, President, CEO, Broadcom

Symantec CloudSOC and Secure Access Cloud facilitate access to on-premises, hosted and IaaS/PaaS- based resources and can help enforce access and activity controls based on the context of the user and the device. Secure Access Cloud enables granular access and eliminates network-level threats by using Zero Trust Access principles in delivering point-to-point connectivity without agents or appliances.

WatchGuard Technologies

Seattle

Top Executive: Prakash Panjwani, CEO

WatchGuard acquired Panda Security in June to facilitate central management of threat detection and response fueled by AI, behavior profiling techniques and security event correlation. Combining WatchGuard’s network intelligence and telemetry data with the endpoint intelligence and telemetry data of Panda Security will allow customers to better correlate and analyze disparate events and take action.

Webroot, an OpenText company

Broomfield, Colo.

Top Executive: Mark Barrenechea, President, CEO, OpenText

Webroot in June updated its DNS Protection filtering service by encrypting data using HTTPS to prevent eavesdropping, manipulation or exploitation of data by third parties and malicious actors. A month later, the company enhanced its Security Awareness Training offering with videos featuring updated COVID-19 content aimed at encouraging the right security behavior, such as identifying phishing emails and malicious URLs.

Zscaler

San Jose, Calif.

Top Executive: Jay Chaudhry, Founder, Chairman, CEO

The Zscaler Cloud Security Platform provides optimal performance and reliability for users by ensuring they’re no more than a short hop away from their applications. The company’s SASE architecture accelerates cloud adoption, offers a frictionless experience for users, and fuels standardization across locations for the IT team by eliminating the need for device management and separate services.

Zix

Dallas

Top Executive: David Wagner, President, CEO

Zix in April combined the security and compliance offering from its 2019 acquisition of AppRiver with its own to create a single platform that safeguards digital communication tools. The company bought CloudAlly for $30 million in November to help customers protect Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, SharePoint, OneDrive, Salesforce, Dropbox and Box with backup and recovery from any point in time.