Zscaler CEO: Vendors Offering ‘So-Called SASE’ Aren’t Protecting Customers

In a call with analysts Tuesday, Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry slammed cybersecurity vendors that claim to offer SASE — but in reality are delivering ‘nothing more than virtual firewalls and VPNs in the cloud.’

Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry on Monday slammed cybersecurity vendors that claim to offer robust remote access security and networking capabilities via a secure access service edge platform — but in reality are falling far short of meeting the true requirements for providing a robust SASE offering.

Chaudhry said customers are not being protected by these disingenuous offerings, though did not specify the names of vendors that he says are providing “so-called SASE” in his remarks during Zscaler’s quarterly call with analysts.

In addition to SD-WAN, security capabilities typically seen as necessary in SASE include secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB) and zero trust network access (ZTNA). Increasingly, many industry players are emphasizing a single-vendor SASE approach, in which one company provides all SASE capabilities as an integrated platform.

During the call Monday, however, Chaudhry suggested that some vendors are falsely claiming to offer a SASE platform, leaving customers with inadequate security for their distributed workforces.

“Legacy security vendors are offering disjointed point products under the pretext of a platform,” he said.

For instance, Chaudhry said he was recently told by a Fortune 50 customer that a “legacy” firewall vendor sold the company a “so-called platform” — but when the customer attempted to implement the technology, “they found that it was nothing more than consolidated billings.”

“No wonder so many enterprises are getting breached, despite spending billions of dollars on so-called SASE security, which is nothing more than virtual firewalls and VPNs in the cloud,” he said.

Chaudhry made the comments as Zscaler reported financial results for the first quarter of the company’s fiscal 2025, ended Oct. 31, which surpassed Wall Street expectations.

Zscaler disclosed revenue of $628 million for the quarter, up 26 percent from the same period a year earlier and about $22 million above the analyst consensus estimate.

In addition to strong growth in Zscaler’s core zero-trust security offerings in security service edge (SSE) and SASE, the company is finding rising demand for data protection and other emerging product lines, Chaudhry said Monday.

Annual recurring revenue (ARR) has been growing “twice as fast as [ARR in] our core products,” he said.

In terms of its business with channel partners, Zscaler has been increasing the number of “strategic” partners that it works with, Chaudhry said. And notably, “joint partner offerings are expanding beyond [core Zscaler products] to now include our emerging products,” he said.

Ultimately, “with a more mature pipeline, a stronger sales team and growing partner engagements, I believe we remain on track to increase sales productivity and achieve strong growth,” Chaudhry said.