Barracuda Networks, Inc. provides security, networking, and storage products based on network appliances and cloud services and headquartered in California, United States.

 

It strives to make the world a safer place believing that every business deserves access to cloud-enabled, enterprise-grade security solutions that are easy to buy, deploy, and use. Barracuda protects email, networks, data and applications with innovative solutions that grow and adapt with our customers' journey. More than 200,000 organizations worldwide trust Barracuda to protect them – in ways they may not even know they are at risk – so they can focus on taking their business to the next level.

SME WORLD in an email interaction with Murali Urs -

What was the principle motive behind launching Barracuda Networks?

Barracuda Networks was established to provide an email-security solution that every business could afford. As cyber criminals are getting smarter day by day, they are targeting employees of major corporations directly. This is driving the importance of data protection as data has become the new oil or gold, and we fiercely protect a company's important assets with comprehensive and affordable email, public cloud and network security solutions. There are so many ways data can be used for good, but there are major consequences when it is in the wrong hands. Even today after 16 years of establishing the organisation, we are still growing, and innovating with the focus of bringing tomorrow's IT-security technology today.

What is the enterprise security scenario as of today?

Amid the massive COVID-19 crisis, cyber security has been gaining even massive attention from the enterprises in key verticals like banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), IT and telecom. We will continue to see more consumers and businesses become aware of the impact of how companies use their personal data. This will result in more discussion about the role of trust in security. The market will start to adjust to the major and lasting shift that COVID-19 has caused in corporate work environments. Security products and architectures will be under increasing pressure to be flexible to deploy and operate, minimally invasive to the users, and as effective as possible without conflicting with privacy legislation in various regions of the world. The Indian cybersecurity services industry as per a report by Nasscom-DSCI,  is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 21% to touch $13.6 billion by 2025.

We expect to continue to see a proliferation of distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, ransomware, business email compromise, and malware-based attacks. However, the current enterprise security landscape emphasizes trends like email that will be the major threat vector. Email and phishing threats faced by organizations today vary greatly in complexity, volume, and the impact they have on businesses and their employees. The Barracuda researchers have been observing a steady increase in the number of coronavirus COVID-19-related spear-phishing attacks since January and the threat is growing rapidly. In fact, in our recent report, 66% of respondents from Indian organisations said that they had already experienced a major security scare since the remote working transition, whereas 67% of employees reported an increase in email phishing attacks since they shifted to 100% remote working. The pandemic has opened up an opportunity for scammers to craft enticing phishing attacks that basically includes spamming, malware, brand impersonation, and business data exfiltration.

How important it is for organisations to secure home working?

The pandemic has forced a large number of companies to suddenly switch to the remote working set up. While most companies are already experienced with the processes involved in remote working and the security vulnerabilities attached to it, the widespread rollout of a remote workforce to contain the spread of COVID-19 challenged even the most prepared organisations. It is primarily because a majority of the cybercriminals have sensed an opportunity amid the pandemic and are launching a spate of attacks manipulating people's fear and uncertainty. The malicious attackers can target endpoints that might be less protected than the usual corporate desktops.

Moreover, considering that the employees might be distracted at home, they are prone to click on unprotected links or open attachments they may otherwise have avoided. For instance, there have been phishing emails impersonating WHO (World Health Organization) and containing URLs leading to fake login pages and asking users to 'review important information from WHO. The intensity of such threats makes it is crucial for companies working remotely to meticulously focus on the best email security practices to protect their businesses, remote workers and customers.

In addition, there has been an accelerated migration to cloud services among many organisations to address shutdowns and remote workers due to COVID 19. It is critical for IT executives to understand whether and how the assets and services delivered in the public cloud are adhering to compliance regimes and how they impact the privacy of their customers or enterprises for the potential risk of data breaches. 

We believe every business deserves access to cloud-enabled, enterprise-grade security solutions that are easy to buy, deploy and use. Distracted remote employees are more susceptible to accidentally sending sensitive information to the wrong people. Businesses would need to set up appropriate outbound filtering, data loss prevention, and encryption policies to keep sensitive information from leaving their organization

How threat perception has changed in the last few weeks because of the Pandemic?

The COVID 19 crisis has disrupted business operations and technology initiatives around the world, forcing rapid adoption of SaaS solutions and collaborative tools among organisations for their remote workers and off-site IT support. Office 365 and Microsoft Teams adoption has grown quickly as companies adjusted to public health mandates. However, the cyber mafias turning into opportunists came as no surprise. We saw a lot of innovations in the existing attacks. It all started with SPAM, which moved on to much sophisticated types of attacks. 

Cybercriminals have drastically intensified their attack vectors by taking advantage of the widespread discussion of COVID-19 in emails and across the web. Our researchers have been observing a steady increase in the number of corona virus COVID-19-related spear-phishing attacks since earlier this year and the numbers are just escalating quickly. There is no doubt that the work-from-home culture has increased organisations' vulnerability towards security postures. With a significant amount of employees suddenly working online with connected devices to unprotected home networks, the attack vectors have amplified. Cybercriminals are resorting to new tactics for launching attacks. As mentioned in our recent survey report on remote working, 66% of respondents from Indian organisations said that they had already experienced a major security scare since the remote working transition, whereas 67% of employees reported an increase in email phishing attacks since they shifted to 100% remote working.

Moreover, in our latest Threat Spotlight, our researchers identified an Inter Planetary Storm malware that released a new variant into the wild targeting Mac, Android, Windows and Linux machines. The malware has been building a botnet, which has roughly infected 13,500 infected machines located in 84 different countries around the world, with the majority (62%) based in Asia. Before this, in August, our researchers identified 6,170 malicious accounts that use Gmail, AOL, and other email services, have been responsible for over 100,000 Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks in 2020 on nearly 6,600 organisations. The hackers are registering email accounts with legitimate services to use them to conduct impersonation and business email compromise attacks.

As we are progressing to 2021 soon, we foresee the threat landscape to become more challenging and COVID-19 will continue to impact security in many ways. Cybercrime will go where money can be made and healthcare will keep getting specifically targeted as system outages will immediately threaten lives. We should expect to continue to see a proliferation of distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, ransomware, business email compromise, and malware-based attacks. These attacks will be more successful as companies deal with a series of events that have changed the attack surface.

What are the effective cybersecurity measures that one should take care to prevent security breaches?

Cyber mafias can target any endpoint that is less protected than the usual corporate desktops as distracted remote employees are more vulnerable to accidentally sending sensitive information to the wrong people. While organisations can deploy cloud-enabled, enterprise-grade security solutions to protect their email domain, networks, data and applications, they will have to emphasise a dedicated culture of security to safeguard all their entry points from the attackers.

To start with, business owners must consider using monitoring or surveillance tools to get better insights and ensure that the employees are adhering to best practices for remote access security. They should investigate the services used by the remote workers to send and receive files, and sensitive information from clients, and get them upgraded. Meanwhile, business owners must crackdown on weak passwords and urge their workers to regularly update their login information. They can also restrict data access to workers for nonessential purposes and deploy an AI-based solution to keep up with the most sophisticated attacks like dangerous hacking vulnerabilities, ransomware, or other malicious activity from a third-party source.

Organisations can also micro-segment their network to build multiple boundaries for the attackers to cross before gaining access to another subset of data. These frontiers are created to only allow the minimum necessary services. Cloud-to-Cloud Backup is yet another real solution that can change the way oganisations protect their data. It provides comprehensive, cost-effective, scalable protection for all Office 365 data and securely backs up email, contacts, folders, schedules, and tasks, along with the OneDrive for Business, SharePoint, Groups, and Teams data, to the Cloud Storage.

User education is also vital in this scenario. So, organisations must engage their workforce in cyber security training that would help them track potential dangers in action. Corporate employees should be encouraged about ongoing research on current hacking trends and malware so that they eagerly participate in keeping the company data secure.

What is your vision for Barracuda Networks?

We at Barracuda Networks envision a safer world for businesses everywhere. We are here to protect and support our customers for life, which means providing the best and innovative security solutions that are easy to buy, deploy and use. We are an innovator in our key markets, for example, we are the first to offer firewalls in Microsoft Azure. Barracuda provides easy, comprehensive and affordable solutions for email protection, application and cloud security, network security and data protection, with more than 200,000 global customers trust Barracuda to safeguard their employees, data, and applications from a wide range of threats. As a company dedicated to partners, we value partnership and work with more than 5,000 channel partners worldwide. We look to grow with channel partners and succeed together, committed to providing customers with world-class products, service and support.

What is the growth trajectory you may have planned?

The threat landscape is changing rapidly post the pandemic. To address the evolving customer needs, we continue to drive innovation and offer email, public cloud, network and app security protection with leading cloud-delivered SaaS solutions. For instance, Barracuda recently acquired Fyde, a Zero Trust Network Access innovator, and launched “Barracuda CloudGen Access” toenable secure, reliable, and fast access to cloud or on-premises applications and workloads from any device and location. Barracuda also introduced “Barracuda CloudGen WAN” the first global secure SD-WAN service built natively on Microsoft Azure to optimize network performance and minimize cost. At Barracuda, we strive to deliver the best in class and innovative security solutions that are easy to buy, deploy and use.

In addition, we're customer-centric and focus to providehigh-value, subscription-based IT solutions that suit customer needs. We have a variety of consumptions from annually or monthly billing, cloud, on-premises or hybrid that are available to customers. Our team of over 350 people provides 24x7 technical support via phone, live chat, online portal and e-mail whenever customers need assistance. As a company dedicated to partners, we also focus to success together with our partners in finding new business, expanding and growing their business. We continue to heavily invest in brand marketing to ensure that our customers know and trust us as well as our partners. 

About Murali Urs

Murali Urs, Country Manager, India of Barracuda Networks comes with a sales  career spanning over 22 years with experience in  setting up of operations – Sales, Channels and Alliances building and leading a team, Direct Account Management (large accounts and mid-market), selling solutions and products, Channel Development and Management ,Channel and Product Marketing, Planning and Strategizing to setup sales, channel, operations, marketing and long term growth plan.