Barracuda Networks on a Mission to Rejuvenate ASEAN Digital Security

Written by: Izzat Najmi, Journalist, AOPG.

Since its establishment 19 years ago, Barracuda Networks, Inc. has been issuing non-stop, premium-grade security, networking, and storage services to be used by organisations all around the world. The California-based company offers solutions designed to safeguard users from dangers including spam, spyware, Trojans, and viruses that can be contracted through electronic mail, web browsing, and hacking.

Following the success to seal its first major investment of USD $40 million from Sequoia Capital and Francisco Partners in 2006, the company has never looked back and now looks to broaden its horizon to a wider number of users and strengthen its grip on the Asian market with the recent appointment of Philippe Cazaubon as the new Regional Director for Southeast Asia and Korea.

CyberSecurityAsean recently had an opportunity to interview Cazaubon and talk about his new role, updates on Barracuda’s operation and priorities moving forward in Asia plus a little insight on the hot and latest topic on KKR’s acquisition of Barracuda.

When talking about what his new role involved and what would Barracuda’s internal and external priorities would be moving forward, Cazaubon stated that he is responsible for accelerating Barracuda’s business expansion and sales momentum in Southeast Asia and Korea. In this region, many enterprises see partners as trusted advisors when it comes to technology buying decisions.

“Barracuda has built some serious momentum in the market over the past few years, and I will continue to build on this, working closely with our team to continue to grow and strengthen our partner ecosystem. As a channel dedicated company, we continue to invest in our channel partners and equip them with the most innovative technology and knowledge to help them solve their customers’ most pressing business problems around protecting email, networks, data, and applications,” Cazaubon added.

Barracuda Network’s Mission in the Region

According to Cazaubon, Barracuda’s goal has always been to protect its customers’ business journey and empower them to take advantage of the cloud with cloud-first security solutions, which may help customers to pre-empt, prepare and protect against the increasing number of evolving threats targeting businesses today.

Today, Barracuda employs more than 100+ people across the Asia-Pacific region, and that number continues to grow as it increases the numbers to meet the demands of its expanding customer base. Building on a successful channel ecosystem, Cazaubon stated that Barracuda Network continues to recruit partners and enable existing channel partners to sell its solutions successfully with the marketing and sales support they need. This leads to the launch of Barracuda Academy, a series of monthly workshops designed to provide partners with the tools, training, and resources to successfully sell Barracuda solutions.

Cazaubon added that additionally, they are able to continue delivering innovation and enable partners and customers in Asia to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to staying protected in the Microsoft 365 environment by deepening their partnership with Microsoft and other technology partners.

An important question that will always linger on the minds of customers is what Barracuda brings to the table, that will set it apart from all of the competitors that are providing similar solutions and services. According to Cazaubon, Barracuda provides industry-leading cloud-first security solutions that are easy to buy, use and deploy.

He added that Barracuda’s key part of its success in the Asia-Pacific region has always been its ability to offer customers the medium to solve the diverse security challenges they are facing, from email, and network, to data and applications.

“We understand customers have different needs, and we offer comprehensive solutions and deployment options that fit their business requirements. For instance, our three email protection plans are designed to provide a mix of email security capabilities based on customer needs. The multi-layered protection we provide to protect against these prominent threat vectors sets us apart from the competition,” Cazaubon said.
 
Playing a Role in Mitigating Cyber Challenges in Southeast Asia

To help organisations in the region stay ahead of cyber threats, Barracuda Networks offers multi-layered protection to protect users against threats that arise from email, networks, data, and applications. This has helped it become one of the leading providers of cloud-first security solutions and, according to Cazaubon, Barracuda is committed to helping partners and end-users navigate the increasingly complex threat landscape in Asia-Pacific. As email, web applications, data and networks are subject to increasing volumes of complex attacks, Barracuda vows to secure its customers’ business journey with innovative technologies.

Currently, the company offers state-of-the-art critical solutions to solve many of the common security, connectivity and scalability challenges that businesses are facing in this age of digital transformation, including:

• AI-powered email protection to protect against business email compromise (BEC).
• Social engineering or a next-gen web application firewall to protect websites and applications from DDoS attacks or bad bots.
• Cloud-native Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform with SD-WAN and zero-trust capabilities is also provided by Barracuda.

As for the company’s recent USD $3.8 billion acquisition by US hedge fund KKR and its impact on Barracuda’s clients in Asia, Cazaubon commented, “With the support of KKR, we will continue to invest in growth and foster a culture that gives our team the resources and inspiration to continue to create and deliver the next-generation of leading cybersecurity solutions for our customers and partners.”