Secure Web Gateways 2021: Frost Radar Report

A Benchmarking System to Spark Companies to Action - Innovation that Fuels New Deal Flow and Growth Pipelines

Web-borne threats are second to email as the major threat vector for cyberattacks. It is the hacker favorite for command and control. More organizations are conducting business online and web access has become a critical component. Internet traffic increased drastically driven in large part because of the surging work-from-home trend.

In the last few years, the complexity and volume of threats have increased significantly. Web-based threats have become big business, targeting specific verticals as well as individuals in organizations. The threat landscape is constantly changing. Advanced and targeted threats remain prevalent along with the growth of malware. Incidences of attacks targeting web browsers and web-based email are increasing. Attacks have become more sophisticated and aimed at high-profile targets, and hackers have more monetary incentives.

State and criminal actors now use multichannel attack techniques (or cross-channel attacks) that start via email but immediately transfer to the web or cloud channel when the user clicks on a link within the message; thus, tighter integration between email, web, and app security are critical for end-to-end protection.

Many attacks use social engineering techniques, and cybercriminals are leveraging COVID-19 fear and uncertainty. The most significant trend in the secure web gateway (SWG) market is the acceleration of organizations migrating to the cloud. Organizations continue to adopt cloud applications and storage and run more of their workloads from the cloud; the result is an increase of threats that are focusing on the web channel and a reliance on browser to access applications. Cloud applications also pose the threat of data leakage.

Security vendors constantly innovate and expand SWG features and functions to be more competitive and counter increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. SWG’s importance as part of the larger integrated cloud security architecture is growing in tandem with cloud usage in general. The ability to offer integrated, end-to-end security is a major competitive advantage as customers seek to consolidate their security solutions and ease the management overhead of an expanded security perimeter.

The report reveals the market positioning of companies in an industry using their Growth and Innovation scores as highlighted in the methodology. The document presents competitive profiles on each of the companies based on their strengths, opportunities, and a small discussion on their positioning. The publisher analyzes hundreds of companies in an industry and benchmarks them across 10 criteria, where the leading companies in the industry are then positioned.