'We've failed you': VMware CEO takes aim at security industry

Pat Gelsinger boasts of VMware's newfound approach to security at VMworld

The tech industry has failed customers and partners in its attempt to prevent cyber attacks, according to VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger.

Speaking at VMworld, Gelsinger said that security is "the most important topic of them all", but that the current model is "broken".

"When you think about our world today, the target is getting larger and larger, and the future is devices, networks and services - things that the CIO doesn't control anymore," he said.

"Something is terribly wrong. You're spending more and falling further behind.

"I will simply say that we, the tech industry, have failed you, our customers, and we need a new approach."

Gelsinger projected a slide onto the big screen during the keynote showing hundreds of security vendors in a number of security segments.

"It's your job to make sense out of all that," he said. "That's nearly impossible.

"Security spans over $100m and is the fastest-growing line item in the IT budget, and yet the cost and number of breaches is increasing more rapidly than the spend."

Gelsinger went on to plug VMware's 'secure infrastructure' approach, which he explained installs security functionality directly into the infrastructure.

VMware also recently launched its datacentre end-point security product AppDefense at VMworld US.

Speaking to CRN at VMworld, Sam Routledge, CTO at Softcat, said that VMware's emphasis on security was the key takeaway for partners at the event.

"From a technology perspective the emergence of VMware as a security platform company is really interesting and really exciting," he said.

"It's an interesting direction. The idea is you use VMware as a substrate, or underlying platform, and you automatically get more of a secure infrastructure experience.

"They've made some decent progress with that with NSX, but the AppDefense stuff that they actually announced at the US VMworld makes a lot of sense.

"We've been doing a lot of stuff with NSX and the zero-trust model that it enables and AppDefense is another step to that. Security is such a hot topic at the minute so that has got to be a differentiator for them."