| | JUNE 2022ENTERPRISE SECURITY8IN MY OPINIONIN MY OPINIONPlasma is called the fourth state of matter after solid, liquid, and gas. Plasma is superheated matter ­ so hot that the electrons are ripped away from the atoms and form an ionized gas.The security market is a sequence of generations, each adapted to the enterprise configuration in the corresponding period. Each of these eras can be represented advantage ously through a physics equivalent, from solid, to liquid, then gas and finally today, a plasma-like state.The first generation was a pure brick-and-mortar enterprise, carefully architected around a campus and a security posture with a perimeter protecting from the outside through firewalls and physical access control. The physics equivalent to that situation is a solid. In that generation, our firm USVP, invested in Check Point. The second generation also had a physical headquarter, but a more open use of the internet, remote connectivity, and online customer interactions. It marked the start of software as a critical component of any business. Protecting that environment led to web application firewalls, data leakage protection, end-point security, application scanners, etc. The perimeter began to give way, but the security paradigms were still architected to replicate the previous model. The physics equivalent of the second generation is a liquid; harder to control but well defined and for USVP, this was exemplified by Imperva and Vontu.In the third generation, enterprises used the cloud, accepted open source for application development, allowed broad access from TODAY'S ENTERPRISE IS IN A PLASMA STATE AND REQUIRES NEW APPROACHES TO SECURITYBy Dr. Jacques Benkoski, General Partner, U.S. Venture Partnersthe outside-in and the adoption of third party software. The perimeter was abandoned and the enterprise exposed to a large number of participants and distributed assets. Security moved to identity management, authentication, zero trust access, risk-based vulnerability management, run time control, and behavioral profiling, etc. The physics equivalent of the third generation is a gas, hard to contain, but still responding to well understood laws. USVP made successful bets in many markets with Kenna, Luminate, Prevoty, Trusteer and Threatmetrix.Today, what is the current state of enterprise? It is a state where energy is exponentially produced by a never-ending business acceleration and optimization. Every enterprise unit innovates and harnesses technologies at a speed that far exceeds the previously IT-centric approach. In this state, what are the requirements for the security stack? Reflecting on the different dimensions of this explosion of the previous structures, one can see four main axes:1) UNBOUNDED GEOGRAPHY: buildings and people locations are irrelevant. People work from anywhere, on the main campus, in remote offices, and now working from home and hybrid models.2) UNBOUNDED EMPLOYEES: gig workers, consultants, outsourcing partners are intertwined. The delineation between employees with privileges and others not to be trusted is gone and replaced by a spectrum of trustworthiness.3) UNBOUNDED INFRASTRUCTURE: infinitely reactive microservices, third party embedded services (e.g. Twilio, Stripe), infrastructure as code. The infrastructure is ephemeral and connections made with little to no oversight, blending with other services with their own, largely hidden, infrastructure.(Image credit NASA)
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