Startup reinvents security for 100 million+ undersecured physical and virtual servers in private data centers and public clouds

October 22, 2014

5 Min Read

PRESS RELEASE

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Oct. 22, 2014 (BUSINESS WIRE)—Illumio today publicly unveiled its Adaptive Security Platform (ASP), the first-ever software platform that provides granular visibility and security for all data center and cloud computing environments. Global leaders such as Morgan Stanley, Plantronics, Creative Artists Agency, Yahoo, and NTT I3 are turning to Illumio to transform their security posture.

Despite billions of dollars spent on data center security, enterprises continue to experience massive breaches. In part this is due to a broken security model that allows the lateral spread of attacks. Unlike traditional firewalls and network security offerings that focus on the perimeter, Illumio ASP runs on any physical or virtual workload and inspects and protects the instances wherever they run.  It dynamically computes and manages security from the smallest to the largest environments and reduces the attack surface exposed to bad actors.

Charting a new course for security

Adaptive security is transforming the multibillion-dollar data center and cloud security market. It was developed from a clean piece of paper to remove the dependencies on, and shortcomings of, the network. These limitations include:

  • The lack of context and visibility of computing resources behind the firewall;

  • A policy model that relies on manual changes to complex security policies, which results in errors, extensive delays and increasing “policy debt”; and

  • The inability to work anywhere—across private, public and hybrid computing environments—managed through a single set of policies. 

Illumio ASP

Illumio ASP attaches security to each workload and computes the optimal security policy and topology for every application, environment and location. It

can be applied in minutes, rather than the days and weeks required by legacy solutions. Illumio makes security precise and accurate through automation. It adapts to changes in applications and stops the lateral spread of attacks, without any changes to applications themselves. This eliminates the constant human intervention that creates both data center errors and vulnerabilities. Gartner estimates that through 2018, more than 95 percent of firewall breaches will be caused by firewall misconfigurations. For more information on Illumio ASP, visit www.illumio.com/products.   

 

“With the evolution of virtualization, cloud and transient workloads, Morgan Stanley believes that an adaptive security framework that can support a dynamic and responsive computing environment is required,” said Moira Kilcoyne, chief information officer and managing director, Morgan Stanley. “A management layer that understands the fundamental relationships between applications, services and middleware combined with a set of logical security policies can logically segment the workload and compute resources, while adding an additional layer of security.”

 

“As Plantronics harnesses the power of the cloud to help our customers communicate and collaborate across boundaries, security is a top priority,” said Joe Burton, executive vice president and chief technology officer, Plantronics. “By incorporating Illumio into the Plantronics offering, our customers can enjoy the benefits of the cloud with increased confidence.”

Illumio was founded by Andrew Rubin and PJ Kirner and includes a veteran executive team from Cisco, McAfee, Nicira, Riverbed and VMware. The company has raised $42.5 million in funding to date from Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Formation 8 and Data Collective as well as individual investors including Salesforce founder and chief executive officer Marc Benioff and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

“Adaptive Security is the quantum leap for the data center and cloud,” said Andrew Rubin, chief executive officer, Illumio. “We are removing today’s intractable roadblock for enterprises that want to both move quickly and enhance their security. Now enterprises can operate securely at enormous scale in any environment.”

Pricing and availability

Illumio’s ASP software is available today and provided through a usage-based pricing model. It can be delivered from Illumio’s Secure Cloud or managed by a customer in a private data center or public cloud environment.

Additional customer commentary

“Delivering applications and data to our employees regardless of location or device is a cornerstone of our IT strategy,” said Jeff Blair, chief information security officer, Creative Artists Agency. “Illumio’s Adaptive Security Platform provides us with a unified security approach both inside the corporate data center and on the public cloud.”

“Security must be an integral part of IT Infrastructure. It requires a new approach that meets the objectives of rapidly enabling business priorities while ensuring a secure environment,” said Mike Kail, chief information officer and senior vice president, Infrastructure, Yahoo. “Illumio’s Adaptive Security Platform eliminates this paradox and changes the security conversation around adopting cloud platforms from no to yes.”

“Demystifying security in the migration to cloud is a huge obstacle for enterprises,” said Mayan Mathen, senior vice president and chief technology officer of NTT I3, the research and development arm of the NTT Group. “With Illumio’s Adaptive Security Platform, development and operations teams can clearly plan, implement and visualize the security linkages inside a product, not in ad hoc retrospect, which is the industry practice.”

Other commentary

“Today computing technologies are constrained by the lack of visibility and the lack of fine-grained control inside the data center,” said Correy Voo, chief technology officer, Infrastructure and Applied Innovation, UBS. “I am excited about Illumio’s adaptive security technology, about the kind of micro-segmentation and operational agility it brings to the market.”

Additional media resources

Downloadable videos, animations, graphics, headshots, logos, white papers and other materials can be found at www.illumio.com/resources.

About Illumio

Illumio eliminates the gap between the dynamic data center and the static, perimeter-centric security model. Illumio’s Adaptive Security Platform (ASP) delivers visibility and control over workloads running in any data center or cloud environment. It computes security policies and ensures they are provisioned accurately by understanding and continuously adapting to changes in the infrastructure and applications. Innovative organizations are using Illumio ASP to operate at speed, while ensuring that security keeps pace. For more information, visit www.illumio.com or follow us on Twitter @Illumio. 

© 2014 Illumio 160 San Gabriel Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94086

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