Netskope adds Cloud Distribution to UK line-up

Netskope allows the VAD's UK partners to see what users are doing on the cloud, what is being accessed and who it is being shared with

Netskope has signed Cloud Distribution as its latest distributor to deliver its cloud-focused security solution to UK partners.

Netskope – which already works with Excusive Networks - claims to help businesses understand what their employees are doing on any cloud-based application such as Box, Salesforce, Microsoft Office 360, Google Apps or Dropbox.

If it isn't a platform the business wants to use, or isn't as secure as they would like, Netskope's offering is designed to guide the user to the correct program, lessening the risk of malicious behaviour or data loss.

Adam Davison, product and marketing director at Cloud Distribution, spoke to CRN: "The tagline for Netskope is 'allow is the new block', so because they can see everything, they can control everything. One of the key things they track is user behaviour – so if the user wants to use Dropbox, and the business says 'no' because it uses Office 365, then it can steer the user away and redirect them to the service they should be using in the work environment.

"It is a great way of showing users what they should be using at the same time as stopping them using services they shouldn't. So it is allowing them to do what they want to do, but limiting what they do it with."

Companies currently using the security service include Continental Hotels, Nvidia, NetApp and Blue Mountain Capital.

Davison said the goal is to add to that list by recruiting security VARs that can demonstrate how Netskope addresses the BYOD culture and where users might leak data from.

Netskope's UK managing director Jonathan Mepsted said: "Enterprises are becoming increasingly aware of the need for safe cloud app usage, and market demand for our solutions only continues to grow."

Commenting on cloud's safety, Davison said it is only as safe as the service provider makes it, just as an in-house solution is only as secure as the enterprise makes it.

"There are very secure and very safe cloud services if you go to the right people for the right type of service. Likewise, if an enterprise is building its own services, it's only as secure as all the layers and onion skins of multiple security devices that it wants to wrap around it," he said.

He added that it is not always weakness in a business' security that poses a risk to data, but those who access it.

"I think the biggest challenge enterprises have in terms of data being safe is actually the user, not the security. You could put the best security on your systems, but if a user leaks data because they email it to someone they shouldn't, there is nothing you can do."