Notes: Netskope - A Unique Background Among SASE

Summary

• This updated Netskope research is split into one Notes and two Update reports.
• We've been bullish on Netskope's future SASE leadership since 2021. In this series we discuss Netskope's inherent advantages that have assisted the company in becoming a SASE leader.
• We discuss Netskope's unique background versus other SASE vendors and how it places it to compete well in the future evolution of SASE (in this Notes report).
• In theupcoming Updates reports, we discuss Netskope's data-centric advantages and its NewEdge, and compare it to other global networks such as Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, and Cloudflare.
• If you have any questions email us at service@convequity.com

The Shift from Out-of-Band to Inline

At a high level, Netskope has expanded from being an out-of-band player to also doing inline cybersecurity. This evolution deserves analysis because it is very much against the grain within cybersecurity. Pretty much all other SASE rivals come from the NetSec background. In essence all their focus was inline security, but as the presence of the cloud has grown, they have been compelled to develop or acquire out-of-band security capabilities to analyze activity at the sidelines in order to control user activity and protect workloads without be disruptive to their customers’ cloud operations. This agentless, or sitting at the sidelines approach, is needed because the dynamic nature of cloud environments makes traditional security methods using agents and gateways very challenging and most times ineffective.

Netskope has moved in the polar opposite direction – and this is the crux of its competitive advantage. Netskope began with out-of-band, API-based cloud security in specific niches like CSPM, CIEM, or CASB, but instead of expanding horizontally across more agentless cloud security domains, Netskope made the bold move to venture into inline network security. This reverse approach is nearly unprecedented in the industry. While Skyhigh Security attempted a similar path, its frequent ownership changes and mergers make it an imperfect comparison.