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The world of cybersecurity is facing unprecedented challenges. That's the view of Yaniv Hoffman, Vice President of Technologies for Radware in Asia-Pacific, who spoke to us from his base in Hong Kong about how the pandemic has reshaped digital threats and the company's response.

Radware provides cybersecurity and application delivery solutions across cloud, physical, and software-defined data centres. "We secure our customers' digital experience. We make our customers' applications available, keep their data confidential, and protect their cloud transitions," Hoffman said.

The past few years have seen radical shifts in working patterns and online habits, trends suddenly brought into sharp focus by the pandemic. "Business continuity is being heralded as a new term and it's clear that Covid-19 has greatly impacted our lives - both personal and work lives," he explained. Not only did the pandemic introduce terms like 'work from home' and 'social distancing', it also drove a fundamental change in behaviour.

"We meet less people, we go out less, we avoid meetings and stay more at home. And this change of behaviour is also impacting our online behaviour," he noted. Video streaming, online gaming and e-learning have seen a significant increase in consumption, as has online purchasing. "My kids, all day with the online games," he joked.

But for cyber defenders, the rise in remote work has been even more significant. Companies around the globe, Hoffman said, "have mandated work from home policies. That means millions of workers no longer come to the office, or less frequently."

This shift has put huge pressure on IT infrastructure. "The use of SSL VPN or Remote Desktop Protocol has gone up by 30 to 40 percent worldwide, not only in Asia-Pacific but also in North America and Europe. This signals the scale of working from home, but it also means remote access has become the most significant IT resource out there, and we must ensure its availability," he warned.

The consequences of any system failures, Hoffman added, are not trivial: "Otherwise, we are risking the productivity of the organisation and all of our employees."

As internet traffic has surged globally - a 40% increase in the US and nearly doubling in countries like the UK and Italy, according to Hoffman - so have the associated risks. He explained that as more business processes have moved online and into the cloud, organisations face new complexities. "Suddenly, many of the applications are scattered all over - different environments, different clouds, what we call multi-cloud. This affects many personas in the organisation because, think about IT: suddenly they need to deal with a variety of cloud environments, while they need to provide a consistent service."

Radware's core message is that it can protect businesses wherever and however they operate. "We are agnostic of the environment. We know how to manage these solutions, maintain consistency of protection, and ensure operations," Hoffman said.

One of Radware's key tools is the Application Delivery Controller, which guarantees applications remain available, regardless of where they're hosted. "You have a single pane of glass for application delivery control. You can get very deep insights and visibility into your applications," he added.

But the challenges are not only about availability. "We see a peak in attacks, more volumetric attacks, and more complexity. The majority of employees in organisations are working from home, and now they are accessing systems via VPN or desktop protocol. If a DDoS attack hits these elements, the entire business could grind to a halt," he said.

The threat landscape has broadened not just in scale, but in form. "We moved all our applications into public cloud, private clouds, or data centres. The threat landscape is now much wider, more complex to protect," Hoffman pointed out.

Radware's solutions are built to be flexible: "They can live in any format - hardware, software, or cloud-based - giving customers hybrid solutions and the ability to be protected everywhere, anytime," he said.

Businesses must also contend with the growing strain on internet and cloud infrastructure, alongside rising cybercrime. "We see an increase in malicious activities like phishing, ransomware, and all kinds of scams, leveraging the Covid-19 situation. We saw it all around: in Japan, the US, Asian countries, Australia - even some mega ransomware attacks on organisations," Hoffman said.

And then there are bots. "We see more and more bots, as the technology becomes more sophisticated and automated. These bots try to steal data, take accounts, and commit fraud," he added. For every evolving threat, Radware aims to offer a matching defence, all underpinned by a unified, cost-effective management approach.

Addressing the market in Australia and New Zealand specifically, Hoffman said, "We are maybe the best-kept secret here, but we are starting to create more awareness. We have a solid team and we see this as a strategic, advanced, and innovative market." The company supports customers through local sales, engineering, and customer care teams, with a focus on user experience. "The user experience has become the top of mind for organisations today because consumers measure the service - it's no longer just the product, it's the way the service is given," he observed.

Radware has a comprehensive ecosystem in the region, working with partners and maintaining a scrubbing centre for DDoS mitigation in Sydney. "It serves our local customers, helps them mitigate attacks, scrape traffic inside Australia to comply with regulations, and is part of our global security network," Hoffman said.

Asked for his advice to enterprise customers navigating the current climate, Hoffman set out four main takeaways: "First, enable the capacity for expansion. You need to ensure you have enough capacity for the online demand, which is increasing. Second, ensure remote access availability - this is now the most important IT infrastructure. Absolutely, infrastructure must be available at all times. Third, protect remote access and infrastructure applications with advanced, next-generation security solutions. And last, secure your cloud environments: make sure you have the right controller security controls to do it effectively and efficiently."

He concluded: "That's, in a nutshell, my four main takeaways in this period."

The world of cybersecurity is facing unprecedented challenges. That's the view of Yaniv Hoffman, Vice President of Technologies for Radware in Asia-Pacific, who spoke to us from his base in Hong Kong about how the pandemic has reshaped digital threats and the company's response.

Radware provides cybersecurity and application delivery solutions across cloud, physical, and software-defined data centres. "We secure our customers' digital experience. We make our customers' applications available, keep their data confidential, and protect their cloud transitions," Hoffman said.

The past few years have seen radical shifts in working patterns and online habits, trends suddenly brought into sharp focus by the pandemic. "Business continuity is being heralded as a new term and it's clear that Covid-19 has greatly impacted our lives - both personal and work lives," he explained. Not only did the pandemic introduce terms like 'work from home' and 'social distancing', it also drove a fundamental change in behaviour.

"We meet less people, we go out less, we avoid meetings and stay more at home. And this change of behaviour is also impacting our online behaviour," he noted. Video streaming, online gaming and e-learning have seen a significant increase in consumption, as has online purchasing. "My kids, all day with the online games," he joked.

But for cyber defenders, the rise in remote work has been even more significant. Companies around the globe, Hoffman said, "have mandated work from home policies. That means millions of workers no longer come to the office, or less frequently."

This shift has put huge pressure on IT infrastructure. "The use of SSL VPN or Remote Desktop Protocol has gone up by 30 to 40 percent worldwide, not only in Asia-Pacific but also in North America and Europe. This signals the scale of working from home, but it also means remote access has become the most significant IT resource out there, and we must ensure its availability," he warned.

The consequences of any system failures, Hoffman added, are not trivial: "Otherwise, we are risking the productivity of the organisation and all of our employees."

As internet traffic has surged globally - a 40% increase in the US and nearly doubling in countries like the UK and Italy, according to Hoffman - so have the associated risks. He explained that as more business processes have moved online and into the cloud, organisations face new complexities. "Suddenly, many of the applications are scattered all over - different environments, different clouds, what we call multi-cloud. This affects many personas in the organisation because, think about IT: suddenly they need to deal with a variety of cloud environments, while they need to provide a consistent service."

Radware's core message is that it can protect businesses wherever and however they operate. "We are agnostic of the environment. We know how to manage these solutions, maintain consistency of protection, and ensure operations," Hoffman said.

One of Radware's key tools is the Application Delivery Controller, which guarantees applications remain available, regardless of where they're hosted. "You have a single pane of glass for application delivery control. You can get very deep insights and visibility into your applications," he added.

But the challenges are not only about availability. "We see a peak in attacks, more volumetric attacks, and more complexity. The majority of employees in organisations are working from home, and now they are accessing systems via VPN or desktop protocol. If a DDoS attack hits these elements, the entire business could grind to a halt," he said.

The threat landscape has broadened not just in scale, but in form. "We moved all our applications into public cloud, private clouds, or data centres. The threat landscape is now much wider, more complex to protect," Hoffman pointed out.

Radware's solutions are built to be flexible: "They can live in any format - hardware, software, or cloud-based - giving customers hybrid solutions and the ability to be protected everywhere, anytime," he said.

Businesses must also contend with the growing strain on internet and cloud infrastructure, alongside rising cybercrime. "We see an increase in malicious activities like phishing, ransomware, and all kinds of scams, leveraging the Covid-19 situation. We saw it all around: in Japan, the US, Asian countries, Australia - even some mega ransomware attacks on organisations," Hoffman said.

And then there are bots. "We see more and more bots, as the technology becomes more sophisticated and automated. These bots try to steal data, take accounts, and commit fraud," he added. For every evolving threat, Radware aims to offer a matching defence, all underpinned by a unified, cost-effective management approach.

Addressing the market in Australia and New Zealand specifically, Hoffman said, "We are maybe the best-kept secret here, but we are starting to create more awareness. We have a solid team and we see this as a strategic, advanced, and innovative market." The company supports customers through local sales, engineering, and customer care teams, with a focus on user experience. "The user experience has become the top of mind for organisations today because consumers measure the service - it's no longer just the product, it's the way the service is given," he observed.

Radware has a comprehensive ecosystem in the region, working with partners and maintaining a scrubbing centre for DDoS mitigation in Sydney. "It serves our local customers, helps them mitigate attacks, scrape traffic inside Australia to comply with regulations, and is part of our global security network," Hoffman said.

Asked for his advice to enterprise customers navigating the current climate, Hoffman set out four main takeaways: "First, enable the capacity for expansion. You need to ensure you have enough capacity for the online demand, which is increasing. Second, ensure remote access availability - this is now the most important IT infrastructure. Absolutely, infrastructure must be available at all times. Third, protect remote access and infrastructure applications with advanced, next-generation security solutions. And last, secure your cloud environments: make sure you have the right controller security controls to do it effectively and efficiently."

He concluded: "That's, in a nutshell, my four main takeaways in this period."