Patrick Butler, CEO of the Australian cybersecurity firm Loop Secure, is excited about how the cloud is growing his business. His clients are enthused too by the tremendous opportunities and advantages the cloud presents. They’re also a little scared.
“Every year more companies are digitizing all aspects of their business—from manufacturing plants coming online to new ways of serving up information to customers,” says Butler, whose firm provides a full range of cybersecurity services, from one-time red team engagements to managing security operations, primarily for midsize enterprises. “It’s exciting what technology can do to transform what we do with computers. … We’re seeing a huge uptake in collaboration technology, with a lot of customers moving to AWS [Amazon Web Services].”
But Butler acknowledges his clients’ fears—putting sensitive data in the cloud introduces new risks. “Our job is to help customers leverage digital transformation positively without having to worry about the risks, [such as] breaches and brand reputation damage,” he says. “We’ve had to focus on how we protect them in [the cloud and] those areas of their business—areas that have traditionally been quite dark.”
The Challenge of Securing the Cloud
“Setting up security for the cloud can be quite technical,” Butler explains. “There are a lot of configuration options. … Yes, the cloud brings a lot of speed and scale, but one wrong configuration and suddenly you have an AWS S3 bucket available to the broader public with all of your confidential information on it. The cloud brings benefits, but it also brings new and different risks.”
Confidently Securing the Cloud with Help from McAfee
As one of the longest-running cybersecurity companies in Australia, Loop Secure has been a McAfee partner for over a decade. For its clients moving operations into the cloud, the firm primarily uses McAfee solutions to help them reach their security objectives—easily and effectively. For instance, for a midsize services client, Loop Secure implemented McAfee® Virtual Network Security Platform (McAfee vNSP), a complete network threat and intrusion prevention system (IPS) built for the unique demands of private and public clouds. Using McAfee vNSP allowed the company to apply the same robust security policies to endpoints within AWS as on premises.
“What McAfee brings to the table is a comprehensive portfolio, scale, and focus,” Butler explains. “Like us, McAfee focuses only on cybersecurity. That’s important. … To us, the McAfee ‘Together is Power’ mantra means that with McAfee we have a broader team—our people plus McAfee people and products—all dedicated to keeping our clients’ data and environments safe.”
Many of Butler’s clients use McAfee endpoint, networking, and/or web protection solutions and McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator® (McAfee ePO
). In the near future, Butler looks forward to offering them McAfee MVISION, an innovative, integrated, open system from device to cloud. McAfee MVISION could simplify security for these Loop Secure customers by providing consolidated visibility, comprehension, and control across their entire digital estate.
With the acceleration of cloud adoption by its clients and McAfee’s device-to-cloud approach, “The future’s pretty exciting for both us and McAfee,” Butler says.
View below for a short video interview with Patrick Butler. Get your questions answered by tweeting @McAfee_Business.
The post Australian Cybersecurity Firm Experiences Exciting Times as Clients’ Shift to Cloud Accelerates appeared first on McAfee Blogs.