The Gately Report: Illumio Partners Help Fight Ransomware with Zero TrustThe Gately Report: Illumio Partners Help Fight Ransomware with Zero Trust

Illumio partners are helping their customers fend off ransomware attacks by implementing a zero-trust architecture.

That’s according to Todd Palmer, Illumio’s senior vice president of global partner sales and alliances. Illumio provides a zero trust solution for ransomware and breach containment.

Illumio’s latest research shows 58% of companies hit with ransomware have had to shut down operations. That’s up from 45% in 2021. Forty percent reported a significant loss of revenue, up from 22% in 2021, while 41% lost customers and 40% had to eliminate jobs.

Ponemon Institute conducted the research on behalf of Illumio, polling more than 2,500 IT and cybersecurity practitioners in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia and Japan.

“Probably the most compelling message for our partners is breaches are inevitable, and you need to start to coach and train your customers that hey, breaches are inevitable and you need to prepare for that not only because of the rising cost of ransomware, but now they're also going to shut down operations, which is exponentially more costly than whatever they're going to get from a ransomware perspective,” Palmer said. “The big, compelling story for our partners is you have an opportunity to help your customers re-architect their security strategy and to protect their customers' organizations moving forward. They get paid to introduce innovative new technologies and solutions, and this is a great opportunity for them.”

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Equipping Illumio Partners to Help Customers’ Zero Trust Journeys

Over the last 18 months, Illumio has introduced technical tools, training and lab environments for its partners, Palmer said.

“Our typical engagement with a partner is usually, 'Hey, what are the solutions or services you're currently going to market with, and how can this be complementary to what you're already doing?'” he said. “The reality is that most of our partners have done a great job selling a lot of identity and access management (IAM) solutions, or lots of firewalls on the perimeter, and they're talking to customers about a zero trust architecture, but they're missing a core component of that architecture. So we're training them on how to deliver that zero trust message, which is, 'Hey, there are three core components of this zero trust architecture and I can help you along your journey.' So not only are we building and using all of the tools and training materials, and labs, but we've also set up a dedicated organization and resources to help them build out their professional services skills to help their [customers] not only implement it and integrate it into their organization, but operationalize and-or manage it for them on their behalf. So we're trying to coach and prepare our partners to have that next-level conversation with their customers and help them along that zero trust journey."

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Channel Futures: In November, Illumio announced its expanded Enlighten Partner Program. How are Illumio partners benefitting from this?

Todd Palmer: Everything that we do from a program and go-to-market perspective with our partners is around three core pillars, and I think every partner evaluates their investments based on these three things. One, do you have an innovative product that solves a business problem? If we don't, then they're not going to talk to us. Thankfully, we do, and we're in a market that's growing rapidly. No. 2 is, can this be a compelling financial value proposition for you? And we think about that in two different ways. Yes, it has a large average selling price, but we also have a very high renewal rate with our customers. And being that we're a platform that has a cloud environment, and a data center and endpoint all on one platform, when customers buy Illumio, they buy more. So it's an annuity for our partners’ business financially.

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And then there’s also the services component, the third leg of that stool, which is all part of the program. Do we have the right go-to-market model, and tools and resources to help you be successful? That’s resources in the field to help enable their teams on professional services or pre-sales services. It’s campaign tools and materials that are pre-built if they want to have a zero-trust conversation that includes segmentation.

We've doubled our marketing development fund (MDF) and business development fund (BDF) budget to help our partners market to build their pipeline for them. We're not a big organization. We're not going to partner with everybody under the sun. But if a company wants to invest in building a practice with Illumio, we want to make sure that we bring the full power of our organization to help them be successful. Whether they're an advisory services-oriented partner or an MSP, or a reseller, we think we have the appropriate mix of items to help them grow their business.

CF: In October, Illumio achieved AWS Security Competency status for its cloud security solution. What does this mean for Illumio’s partners?

TP: The vast majority of our partners also have big businesses with AWS, and they're building them out with Microsoft as well. They realize their customers want to source through these large hyperscalers and these cloud providers. We make sure that we are authorized through AWS, and we can work with them to transact that business through either AWS or Azure as well. One of the good things is a lot of those companies also have pre-bought credits or spend that they have to do with Microsoft or AWS. Those dollars actually could be used to purchase Illumio, which is hugely beneficial.

I would say 90% of our partners have big businesses with these cloud providers, and we make it really easy for them to work with them and transact through them. We're actually really excited about the relationship that we have with both of those organizations. The reality is they're massive and customers listen to what they have to say.

CF: Also, Illumio Government Cloud has achieved FedRAMP authorization to help federal agencies avoid cyber disasters. Will this create new opportunities for partners?

TP: I don't want to say it's a requirement, but they're constantly looking for the vendors that they do business with to meet these requirements, and the fact that we've met those requirements is hugely beneficial to our partners that are actively selling us. It's the first topic of conversation that comes up, and so it streamlines that whole conversation for them. That was a big investment and we're really proud that we were able to meet that as well. When I meet with a federally focused partner, the very first question they ask is, "Are you FedRAMP-certified?"

CF: Illumio was named a Leader in the latest Forrester Wave for Microsegmentation Solutions. What does this mean for Illumio and its partners?

TP: The fact that we were listed as the most complete solution and the largest from a market share perspective from Forrester means a lot. As one of our partners is having a conversation of, "Hey, Mr. Customer, we've already sold you these preventative-based technologies and we want to help you on your zero trust journey and we're partnering with Illumio, and by the way, Forrester thinks they have the most complete solution on the market," it usually just helps shorten the evaluation process. Someone's done their due diligence and they're validating that Illumio is on the right track, not only technology-wise, but also from a go-to-market perspective. So yes, it's super helpful.

CF: Is Illumio growing financially? If so, what role are partners playing in this growth?

TP: We do almost 100% of our business with and through partners. They are tremendously important to our go-to-market model. Gartner put out a statistic saying 60% of every enterprise is going to be buying some type of segmentation solution by 2026. That's a large number of customers that are going to be evaluating segmentation solutions. We need to not only help customers go through that evaluation process, but also to implement it and to operate it in their environments. We've all talked about the shortage of security technology talent out there in the marketplace. Customers need help. They need help evaluating it. They need help implementing it. And they need help operationalizing it. And that's where our partners have been unbelievably helpful, not only helping us expand our footprint, but helping to ensure our customers are successful and ultimately buying more.

CF: Is Illumio’s partner ecosystem growing? If so, what’s fueling that growth? Also, is Illumio focused on certain types of partners?

TP: It's growing because we're expanding in certain countries around the world where we're going to market. We don't want to go to market with every partner under the sun, so we're pretty selective. We're doing very targeted recruitment. In the last 12 months, we have quadrupled the size of our public sector sales organization, both federal, and state and local government, and so we were actively recruiting partners that do a tremendous amount of business and that are advisors to their customers, not only in the federal space, but also in the state and local space as well, because that's a unique skill set that a partner either invests in those two markets or not.

We did a bunch of recruiting to find partners and distributors in those spaces. Federal SIs are also really influential. Seventy percent of the total government IT spend is done through federal SIs, so we built out a small team to work with those federal SIs to make sure that when they're building a solution, we were integrated into that solution offering. So part of our recruitment has been targeted based upon a specific industry or a new market that Illumio is going into. I'll give you an example. When we get off the telephone, I'm flying to London. Next Thursday I'll be in the Netherlands. We just hired a sales team in the Netherlands, and we're hiring a partner team in the Netherlands and the Nordics. So we're out there recruiting a few partners that we want to go to market with, specifically in the Netherlands, because that's a brand-new market to us.

CF: What are some examples of newer markets for Illumio? Also, is Illumio targeting other regions for future expansion?

TP: The Gulf Coast countries – the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman, that business is growing like a weed. All of those countries are coming up with different security guidelines and regulations as well. And guess what? They look a lot like the zero-trust architecture. They call specifically for the need for visibility and segmentation, and so we have just put teams in the UAE and we're hiring them in Saudi Arabia as well. I was out a few weeks ago recruiting some best-in-class partners, helping them build out practices around segmentation.

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CF: AI is the hottest topic in cybersecurity. How is Illumio making use of AI in its solutions?

TP: We have to work constantly to make the tools a lot more efficient because there's a shortage of resources that are going to be operating them. AI is a great example of what we can do. If you can have technologies, whether it be through AI or machine learning (ML), assessing the situation based upon the data feeds that you're giving them, making not only recommendations of segmentation policies that they need to get put in place, but also to automate some of those policies and put those in place across your environment, that's tremendously helpful. So we are continuing to innovate with AI technology into our platform to make it not only easier to use, but a lot more efficient for our customers.

CF: What do you find most surprising and dangerous about the current threat landscape?

TP: If you just look at what's happened over the last couple years, the attack surface has grown immensely. I've got two laptops, an iPad and a cellphone. Each of those is an attack surface that literally I probably get two or three phishing attacks on a daily basis that you hopefully don't answer. Not only that, but there’s the AI that the cybercriminals are now using, and they're also well funded and unbelievably sophisticated. The reality is everyone is going to get breached. It is inevitable. That is the sad thing that's going on in the market that we're in right now. Just the realization that companies have thrown an ungodly amount of resources and dollars into investing in security tools and they're still going to get breached, I think that's the unfortunate reality of the world that we live in right now. The good news about Illumio is that is the place where we play. Let's assume you're going to get breached. Let's protect your most critical assets that you have in your environment, your most critical data. Let's ensure that your business can continue to operate as resilient, and let's make sure that it's not catastrophic damage to your organization. It's good for business, but it's an unfortunate reality of the world we live in.

CF: What can partners expect from Illumio in 2025?

TP: Continued investment, deeper and deeper engagement in the field, and we expect the business to grow pretty rapidly. We've seen a massive acceleration in pipeline and our partners are driving a lot of that for us as well. We want to invest in the partners that want to build a business with Illumio so we'll continue to increase that investment. In fact, I tell partners all the time, "Hey, we're going to sit down and build a plan on what we're going to do together, but if you’ve got crazy ideas that you think can help grow our joint business two or three times, we want to hear about them." We’re constantly encouraging our partners to think outside of the box because the market is growing rapidly and large, and we have to work together to be able to support that. And when I say work together, I don't only mean our go-to-market partners, but our tech alliance partners as well.