After raising $100 million in funding, Island today emerged from stealth to formally launch an Enterprise Browser that provides a more secure alternative to existing consumer-grade browsers.
Island CEO Michael Fey said the Enterprise Browser makes use of the same open source Chromium engine as other browsers but has been extended to provide centralized IT with more manageability, control, security and enhanced productivity features that run inside the browser.
Island’s browser enables IT and security teams to govern how users interact with all software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and internal web applications, including controls that limit copy, paste, download, upload, screenshots and other activities that might expose critical data.
Fey was previously president and COO at Symantec and general manager and CTO of McAfee. Island CTO Dan Amiga is credited with inventing web isolation technology and previously founded and served as CTO of Fireglass. The goal of the company is to provide a secure browser that either reduces or eliminates the need to implement and maintain virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), virtual private networks (VPNs) or secure access service edge (SASE) platforms to secure endpoints, noted Fey. Web filtering and web isolation capabilities along with exploit prevention, smart network routing and zero-trust access controls are built into the browser, he said.
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a need to find a more efficient way to provide secure remote access to applications that didn’t require a massive amount of IT infrastructure to, for example, encrypt data, noted Fey. The Enterprise Browser’s security controls are all implemented in a way that secures access to data that, previously, IT security teams would have encrypted, he said. Reducing the dependency on encryption provides the added benefit of also improving overall application performance, noted Fey.
The Enterprise Browser accomplishes that goal in a way that also serves to reduce the carbon footprint of organizations that no longer need to deploy a wide range of security infrastructure, he added.
It’s not clear whether enterprise IT organizations will replace existing, widely used browsers with this more secure alternative. However, there is already a large user base that has adopted search engines such as DuckDuckGo to ensure their privacy. A browser alternative that is perceived as more secure than standard browsers designed for consumers might gain traction.
One way or another, the focus on endpoint security is rising as enterprise IT organizations look to implement zero-trust IT architectures. The challenge they face today, however, is that the overhead cost associated with acquiring the platforms required to achieve that goal is significant.
Fey said IT and security teams should expect to see Island continue to deliver new capabilities that run inside the browser itself versus only accessing software running externally on a cloud service. It’s not clear what the right balance between running software in the browser versus in the cloud might be. However, as Chromium browser technology continues to evolve, it’s clear the opportunity to better secure endpoints is immense.
