Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - An update from Aqua Security

The cloud is transforming business. That was the clear message from Chris Smith, Chief Revenue Officer at Aqua Security, as he sat down for an exclusive interview to discuss the changing digital security landscape in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ).

With cloud-native applications now at the very heart of digital transformation worldwide, Smith believes security must evolve at the same pace, if not faster. "The world, of course, is developing cloud-native applications and they're doing that because they're scalable and they get agility, optimisation, costs, resilience, reliability out of it," he said. 

Cloud adoption in Australia's government, financial services, and enterprises is accelerating rapidly. "Today, 51% of financial services, government, and other companies are developing in cloud-native applications, but the amazing piece to this is that it's going to be 95% in three years," Smith explained, citing the blistering speed at which organisations are moving to the cloud.

But this migration brings new risks. "The need is that these applications weren't as historically developed with security in mind," Smith warned. "They weren't architected for that and we know this because we have honeypots all over the world. We're seeing a thousand, eighty-two thousand daily attacks of these applications."

Aqua Security, which describes itself as the world's leading pure-play cloud-native security provider, has shaped its offerings to meet this very challenge. As Smith put it: "We stop cloud-native attacks, code to cloud and back. See what others don't. Stop what they can and we flat out guarantee it."

For CISOs (Chief Information Security Officers) grappling with this surge in new apps – many of which appeared without a clear security strategy – visibility is a paramount concern. Smith explained, "If you look at CISOs, they're chartered with protecting applications, but if we dial back two years, depending on the company three years, these applications weren't as pervasive as they are now and the CISO's charter wasn't to secure them."

He highlighted that these applications "are coming out 100 times faster" than traditional software, creating a "need for lightning-fast visibility." As he succinctly put it, security teams need to "find fast, quickly prioritise, and fix fast," running all the way back to the developers' line of code and reducing the 'mean time to repair'.

Tools abound, Smith noted, but they often create confusion with "different versions of the truth." Aqua Security, he said, offers an "integrated platform" to establish a single version of reality – from development to live production.

Local challenges demand local understanding. Regarding Australia's unique security climate, Smith observed: "Australia killer – and I've had the pleasure in the past – Seasons I've heard of consistent humour," he said with a smile, before getting to the heart of the matter: "They really need to get their eyes around the cloud-native threat, and that's really just the beginning."

One hurdle he identified is sifting through the data to determine which threats are real, and which are merely noise. "There are a lot of different technologies out there, they don't do a good job of sifting out ethereal threats from real threats," Smith said. Once a real threat is found, the crucial step is "to be able to stop them in real time and then get back to the line of code – mean time to repair."

The legislative landscape is also shifting. Smith discussed the importance of the Australian Government's Security of Critical Infrastructure (SoCI) Act. "It's a legislative act... it's governance, it's heavily regulated and it's going to be enforced for protecting 11 of the critical industries from cyber incidents," he explained. These threats include "sabotage, espionage, or coercion". Smith said SoCI is in line with other global regulations, much as Aqua's own investment in achieving government certifications, "mirrors Aqua's investment in getting FedRAMP certified for the U.S. government".

On why SoCI matters, Smith was optimistic for the market: "There's a lot of hurdles that people have to get through, but I think it ultimately is going to be very good for the Australian market."

Aqua Security's expansion in the ANZ region has mirrored this sense of urgency. "We've been in ANZ for about four and a half years but about two years ago I hired a gentleman named Rob Demiko, who's my general manager for APJ. He's based out of the city where I happen to be today and this is one of our fastest growing markets." Cloud and security uptake is "massive," Smith said, and attributed the recent year-over-year growth to Aqua Cloud Security Platform, launched in the Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) region 18 months ago.

Smith was quick to point out the company's impact. "We are humbled and privileged because we have earned the trust of the largest banks, government entities, and telecommunications. That's all happened in the last 18 months," he said.

Asked why the time is now for cloud-native security in ANZ, Smith drew comparisons to other industries: "These applications as I stated earlier are everywhere. They're growing, they're not going away. 95% of the enterprise are going to be utilising them and they need to be secure because these applications are just wrappers who are critical infrastructure in the crown jewels of companies." 

The need for robust defences is clear. "The ability to see what's happening, stop bad things from happening – it's here," Smith said. He argued that effective security has become a true market differentiator. "A company, a bank as an example, that is able to keep their banks' company out of the headlines versus another one is going to be a competitive differentiator and that means that they're going to have a really strong and impactful security posture."

Ending the interview, Smith's closing message was clear and optimistic: "We look forward to hearing more from Aqua very soon," he said.