In this second part of our discussion with Alert Logic’s Misha Govshteyn, we discuss the road ahead next year for Alert Logic. Misha Govshteyn is the VP of Emerging Products.  Govshteyn is responsible for security strategy, security research and software development.  Alert Logic is a Security-as-a-Service provider which has unique capabilities as a security platform based on its truly native cloud nature.

• Please share some thoughts about Alert Logic’s role in a better cybersecurity profile in 2014

Given our perspective – our approach is not secret we believe data security is under-invested.  Within the market, there is too much invested still on endpoints, too much tied up within legacy security budgets, while we are focused on data centers. Most of our development has been protecting applications from data environments through all types of environments including those that outsource in public hosting environments the “public cloud”, hybrid environments, on-prem and everything in between.  We also see that the cloud is growing but it would grow faster if security needs overall were met better.  That’s what we’re doing.

• What about NSA surveillance, issues like privacy and digital freedom, will it diminish as an issue in 2014?

The surveillance issue is one that really has had a consumer privacy focus, but many are still concerned about the operations of their private companies.  Considering these factors it should be clear that the business world is unlikely to be affected.  One of things people may not realize if you do move apps to cloud, AWS lets you encrypt where it is in cloud. This is a feature that is turning up in other clouds as well. In Amazon’s case, the feature is known as CloudHSM, and it makes your private encryption key something that would be difficult for Amazon itself even to get a hold of. So you can see that here is an opportunity where the cloud is making better security possible especially in cases where it may not have been practiced or practical before.  Fortunately what we know about this surveillance wave hasn’t shown much interest in the collection of private company data, but it’s good to know there are steps that can be taken to fortify your company’s interests whether it’s better security, compliance or control you’re after.

• What are the changing needs your company has identified with cloud providers? And what do you identify cloud providers will be in high-demand of in 2014 and beyond?

I did session at Amazon ReInvent- and found during the talk that most of room in attendance used the AWS product, but when we asked how many had web application firewalls, only 3 guys raised hands.  Then we asked how many can auto scale security, and a lot of people were interested but the answer was zero.  So there’s a lot of work to do.   This is number one thing cloud providers need, but it has be made easy for customers to consume.  They are trying to find solutions that are native to cloud, and it’s a place where frankly the security industry is largely missing the boat.  There is a huge opportunity to help cloud tenants protect their environments, on the flip side of that cloud providers are worried about their own security as well.

One of terms you don’t hear much of yet is ‘software-defined security’. It is the next logical step, and it’s year may not be quite be 2014, but it is coming. When you consider the challenges of today’s monolithic software, in situations where security that is focused on this is not yet easy deployable, it is clear that the time for this type of security will come. You’ll see first signs of this movement in 2014.

• The Amazon partnership is something obviously very prominent in the Alert Logic story.  How close to AWS are your development initiatives?  

We all know how AWS has tremendous impact on IT in general, they have been on an incredible path of growth and innovation.  So yes, it is a big factor for us.  If you look at the latest cloud developments of Azure and Google, they are essentially replicating AWS, because they have to reach parity to even start to become competitive with Amazon.  Therefore, we prototype on AWS because it’s the biggest and most complex, and we are dedicated to this cloud-first approach.  So when we build for the industry, that’s where we go. We support about a dozen clouds and providers today. Most computing demands the most agility and Amazon is a great place to start.

• We’ve spoken before about Alert Logic’s industry-leading security products. Please talk about some of the future developments on the way.  What will Alert Logic look like at the end of 2014?

2014 holds three different areas of work, the last couple of years we’ve been helping cloud customers protect their applications, delivering huge benefits, through that things like cloud scaling have become possible.  Clearly, prior to that rapid deployment was possible, but security had been left behind.  Having Alert Logic with its cloud native nature and robust API has changed that by having features that are not only powerful but flexible and easy to integrate.

The next area is something that is quite familiar for us, we’ve always been a big data company.  So in 2014 you’ll see a string of announcements in terms analytics and new ways to extract value for our customers.  We’ll start to enable visibility into attack history, knowledge of attacks and attackers.

Long term, we will be taking the lead in security. You see, the world has enough products, there’s so many things to buy, but it’s time to stop focusing on new products at this time and start adding more functionality and features to our products. Adding more value for customers as these products evolve.