2019 Security 100: 20 Coolest Network Security Vendors

Defending The Network

The increased adoption of BYOD and Internet of Things technology has boosted the internal and external cyber threats that networks face.

More and more companies are adopting next-generation firewall offerings to secure their business infrastructure from advanced threats like ransomware, advanced persistent threats (APTs), zero-day attacks, malware, and unauthorized access. The market for ancillary professional services such as consulting, support and maintenance, training and education, and system integration is also growing.

As part of CRN's annual Security 100 list, here's a look at 20 vendors that have raised their game to meet continued network security needs.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

Keerti Melkote, Co-Founder, SVP and GM

Santa Clara, Calif.

Aruba’s Software-Defined Branch offering integrates cloud-managed SD-WAN and networking tools secured with context-based policy enforcement to boost network availability and application performance. The company’s wireless access points also are certified to provide stronger encryption and simpler IoT security configuration.

Attivo Networks

Tushar Kothari, CEO

Fremont, Calif.

Attivo named FireEye veteran Tony Cole CTO in March as it looked to boost its presence in the government, financial services, and oil and gas verticals. Six months later, it added advanced deception techniques to derail sophisticated attacks targeting serverless applications in cloud and data center environments.

Check Point Software Technologies

Gil Shwed, Founder and CEO

San Carlos, Calif.

Check Point in October purchased Dome9 to help customers secure multi-cloud deployments across AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Three months later, former VMware Americas channel leader Frank Rauch was named global channel chief and said he plans to make big investments in channel programs and tools.

Cisco Systems

Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO

San Jose, Calif.

Cisco married network and identity security together with its purchase of Duo Security in August, giving it a presence in unified access security and multifactor authentication. In November, it integrated advanced security into its SD-WAN devices such as application-aware enterprise firewall and intrusion prevention and URL filtering.

Claroty

Amir Zilberstein, Co-Founder and CEO

New York, NY

Claroty completed a $60 million Series B funding round in June to expand engineering and sales and marketing efforts globally and push toward having more than half of its revenue come from partners. Claroty also introduced new capabilities that provide deeper OT network visibility and reduce risk for industrial enterprises and infrastructure providers.

Cloudflare

Matthew Prince, Co-Founder and CEO

San Francisco, Calif.

Cloudflare in September debuted five offerings and advancements in cryptography to make the internet more secure, including a Distributed Web Gateway that provides secure access to content stored on the peer-to-peer file system. The company in October also reportedly tapped Goldman Sachs to lead it in an IPO.

Darktrace

Nicole Eagan (pictured) and Poppy Gustafsson, Co-CEOs

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Darktrace Cloud was updated in June to protect the next generation of cloud computing models, devices and applications such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Salesforce and Google Cloud. The company in September closed a $50 million Series E round led by existing investors KKR and TenEleven Ventures.

FireEye

Kevin Mandia, CEO and Board Director

Milpitas, Calif.

FireEye in O c t o b e r rolled out a new version of its Helix platform that combines SIEM capabilities with advanced security orchestration to help automate security operations. That same month, it rolled out free tools, shared knowledge and on-demand services to advance community-based protection from cyber attacks.

Forescout

Michael DeCesare, CEO and President

San Jose, Calif.

Forescout in July promoted North American channel director Jonathan Corini to the global channel chief role to help boost international business and drive services sales. In November, the company purchased SecurityMatters to gain granular visibility into what devices are connected to what networks on the operational technology side.

Fortinet

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO

Sunnyvale, Calif.

Fortinet extended segmentation and security to the edge of the enterprise network by buying Bradford Networks in June. In December, it unveiled plans to integrate its Next-Generation Firewall capabilities into Symantec’s cloud-delivered Web Security Service.

Infoblox

Jesper Andersen, President and CEO

Santa Clara, Calif.

Infoblox in May hired former Ixia channel chief Lori Cornmesser as vice president of worldwide global partners, where she hopes to customize partner messaging. One month later, Infoblox debuted an offering that lets telecommunication providers offer revenueg0enerating, personalized services by leveraging its network intelligence.

Juniper Networks

Rami Rahim, CEO

Sunnyvale, Calif.

Juniper enhanced its unified cybersecurity platform to enable security teams to accelerate detection, streamline analysis and automate enforcement. The company also updated its Advanced Threat Prevention Appliances to enable enterprises to detect malware, understand behavior and mitigate threats with just one touch.

NetScout

Anil Singhal, Co-Founder, President, CEO, Chairman of the Board

Westford, Mass.

NetScout in April unveiled a new DDoS offering that more than doubles mitigation capacity over the previous version. The company also debuted a new security tool with automated detection and blocking of multiple types of inbound and outbound threats.

Netskope

Sanjay Beri, CEO

Santa Clara, Calif.

Netskope’s web security tool lets organizations manage and protect SaaS, IaaS and web from a single platform so that enterprises don’t have to grapple with multiple interfaces. The company also recently hauled in $168.7 million to enable more cutting-edge research and development and drive global data center expansion.

NSFocus

Jiye Shen, Co-Founder and CEO

Santa Clara, Calif.

NSFocus in September introduced a tool that identifies cyber risk exposure and provides immediate insight that prioritizes remediation and blocks further malicious activity within the network. That same month, the company debuted a cloud security service that can be quickly deployed by service providers without the typical up-front costs.

Palo Alto Networks

Nikesh Arora, CEO and Chairman

Santa Clara, Calif.

Palo Alto Networks in March agreed to purchase Evident.io to make it easier for enterprise cloud users to keep their deployments compliant and secure. Three months later, the company selected Nikesh Arora—who helped grow Google’s search business from $2 billion to $60 billion—to be its next CEO.

Pulse Secure

Sudhakar Ramakrishna, CEO

San Jose, Calif.

Pulse Secure in October u n v e i l e d plans to roll out ondemand provisioning and pay-per-use pricing to reduce the up-front investment required from MSSPs. The company also has released a new version of Pulse Policy Secure to help customers secure industrial IoT and streamline maintenance activities.

SonicWall

Bill Conner, President and CEO

San Jose, Calif.

SonicWall’s new Network Security virtual firewalls protect all critical components of private and public cloud environments, delivering the security advantages of a physical firewall with the operational and economic benefits of virtualization. The company recently promoted Bob VanKirk to chief revenue officer.

StackPath

Lance Crosby, CEO and Chairman

Dallas, Texas

StackPath in May merged with Server Density to make it easier for users to monitor their websites and servers in the cloud or on-premises from a single console and APIs to easily diagnose problems, maintain uptime and maximize server performance. The company also launched a serverless computing service for developers.

WatchGuard

Prakash Panjwani, CEO

Seattle, Wash.

WatchGuard's cloud-based multi-factor authentication offering is designed for SMBs and eliminates complex integration processes, considerable up-front expenses and burdensome, on-premises management requirements. The company also has a new antivirus scan service that uses an artificial intelligence engine.