SaaS and Security are Perfect Together

Earlier this week, eWeek reported that Webroot is moving further into the software-as-a-service (SaaS) sector. The report says that during the next couple of months, the firm will expand its SaaS efforts from e-mail to Web security in the small- and medium-size business (SMB) sector. Data heading toward clients via Web surfing requests will take a brief detour to Webroot, where it will be scanned for viruses, spyware, and phishing and will have its URLs filtered.

This is a good move. SaaS and security go together perfectly. In general, SaaS provides companies with expertise that they lack. This has particularly strong potential in the security sector, where new threats and new approaches to thwarting those threats proliferate at a dizzying rate. It’s hard for security pros to keep up, much less firms with undermanned and overworked IT departments — or no IT department at all.

Security is being delivered in a growing number of ways. This InfoWorld article says that the concept of SaaS security is being validated by heavy hitters such as McAfee, Symantec and Trend Micro. However, SaaS is not good a good method to deliver all types of security. For instance, the nature of intrusion detection systems (IDS) always will require some on-site equipment. Other security measures, such as exploit prevention and compliance monitoring, will increasingly be done by outsiders.