Looking Ahead

CF: When it comes to security, what can partners and customers expect from VMware in the months ahead into 2023?

Kapur: I think it goes back to the philosophy of where we want to engage when it comes to security. We’re not just trying to build a better mousetrap for technologies that exist there. What we’re really trying to do is take the unique architectures we have to solve for gaps that exist in the industry. So I started out by saying security has gone into places it needs to go to protect everything in the middle, the lateral movement and the lateral security. So that’s the kind of thing we’re doing. We’re taking our ability to provide differentiated assets in places where we can differentiate and close those gaps. So I think as you look forward, it’s really expecting more of the same, meaning we’ll continue to make advances there. One of the tech previews that we are announcing is not only can we look at connections and see what conversation is taking place on it, we’re now building and bringing in things like business logic, and API sequencing to say, if typically a transaction takes place for … a shopping app where somebody comes in, they buy something, they put it in the cart, they place the order and then they pay for it, if we don’t see that exact sequence being followed, we’ll be able to flag that. So it’s just advances in that because security is not something that’s static. You don’t build a solution once and then say, “OK, I’ve got a solution forever.” It’s a cat-and-mouse game. The attackers know what kind of prevention capabilities you have. They keep evolving their attack techniques and you’ve got to keep responding to that or even stay ahead of the game, not just be reactive, but start to anticipate the kind of things they might do. So in the areas we play, especially areas like lateral security and endpoint protection, you’re going to see us continue to advance some of these vectors.