CyberArk works with partners to place Cyber Security at the Heart of Digital Transformation

Mr. Ajit Ramnath
Partner Manager - India & SAARC - CyberArk Software.

What new revenue opportunities will CyberArk help drive for the channel ecosystem in India in 2021?

2021 is going to be an exciting year for CyberArk and our channel partners in India. The CyberArk business in India continue to be dedicated to the channel. We plan to expand our channels ecosystem for the e-commerce, defence and government verticals. Earlier this year, CyberArk acquired Idaptive, a technology platform which delivers AI-powered contextually-aware multi-factor authentication, single sign on and identity lifecycle management that will enable identities to move seamlessly between ”levels” of access. We are in the process of refreshing our agreements with our channel partners to be able to sell Idaptive as well as integrate Idaptive’s existing partner community into CyberArk’s ecosystem. This gives our channel partners a unique opportunity not only to cater to the additional needs of their customers but also an opportunity to be more prominent and relevant to the current cybersecurity needs.

How should channel partners adapt to changing customer demands regarding cyber security and what part does CyberArk play in securing critical assets and data?

The post-Covid world and the new normal brings in many more complexities and adds to the existing challenges of securing businesses during their digital transformation. Organizations have been focusing a lot on securing the remote workforce. The threat landscape is not just increasing but changing constantly with the evolution of the technology that underpins this shift. Most analysts associate stolen credentials with every large successful breach. Since our inception, CyberArk has been in the business of securing and managing the privileged credentials that protect ‘crown jewels’ critical data and assets. At CyberArk, we believe in an on-going, repetitive, intense and comprehensive channel enablement program to ensure partners can meet customer demands on addressing this ever-changing threat landscape. Partners can use our out-of-the-box connectors for multiple industry leading technology vendors that form part of our C3Alliance, helping customers secure a wider attack surface.

Why should channel partners make cyber security a strategic area of investment for 2021?

With the pandemic situation every organisation, including the government, is looking at digitising their businesses. The new normal is forcing businesses to think differently, leading to disruptive business models which have a very short time-to-market. Most organisations are adopting DevOps tools and encouraging cloud migrations. Adoption of emerging technologies by businesses across the world mean, along with the benefits, that the vulnerabilities in these emerging technologies are going to be exploited. Hacking is a tried and tested business model with instant gratification. Channel partnersthat are an enabler of digital transformation have an opportunity also to address this emerging issue related to cyber security, to help their customers on their transformation journey with security at the heart of strategy.

Rohan Vaidya
Country Director, India & SAARC – CyberArk Software.

How has CyberArk helped its customers through the recent period of enforced changes in working patterns? What does the future hold?

Working from home has quickly become a global phenomenon, and it seems like it is here to stay, at least in part, and the resultant cybersecurity issues it causes is a board-level issue everywhere. Most organizations are looking at vendors to provide an agile, cost effective and comprehensive security solution. Privilege Cloud is our Privileged Access Management (PAM) -as-a-Service offering that enables fast, scalable risk reduction. Our PAM cloud solution has allowed security teams to spend their time on education and user adoption of the solution. As part of their PAM efforts, we have seen customers reduce the amount of identities with unnecessary privileged access by 50%. They are able to quickly move to secure all domain admin and server admin access through CyberArk.

We have also worked with customers as they seek to eliminate unsecured usage of admin accounts throughout the organization, and automatically onboard new accounts that are created. What we do is put control back in the hands of security teams, allowing them to review who has access to the most sensitive systems and ensuring the only way for users to maintain their access is through CyberArk.

CyberArk Privilege Cloud is part of our growing portfolio of CyberArk SaaS offerings and our customers are increasingly enjoying the flexibility and scalability of SaaS deployments.

How has CyberArk adjusted its go-to-market to adapt to the ‘new normal’ and to the increasing pace of digital transformation?

CyberArk is a tech-savvy company. As an organisation we have developed a culture of continuous evaluation and adoption of emerging technologies which mutually benefit the customers and employees to work together in the most productive way.

CyberArk has been an early adopter of cloud platforms and have been investing considerably in SaaS-based technology in their different business functions. We have been investing in enabling our customers, employees and partners throughout their digital transformation journey. As a security company we have not just adopted newer technologies but also have ensured that wehave considered and mitigated all possible security risks in their deployment as per industry best practices.

How should organisations be thinking about identity security?

Identity security describes a proactive approach to safely controlling user and system information that is used to authenticate and authorize user identities for access to secure resources. As a key component of your security architecture, it can help verify users’ identities before granting them the right level of access to workplace systems and information. As we begin to realise that every user is a privileged user to some degree, this is an important aspect that all organization must understand and consider.

CyberArk, a pioneer in Privileged Access Security, entrusted to safeguard organizations while driving digital transformation and growth. CyberArk, together with India's leading Technology Aggregator, iValue InfoSolutions, commits to delivering modern cybersecurity in collaboration with channel partners.