2008 was a year of grave challenges for Dr. Parag Pruthi. The moving in of a new tenant in their building complex and associated electrical work led to a massive fire breakout within NIKSUN’s headquarters, destroying over 250 large servers along with its data, and almost everything else. Water from twelve fire trucks and the soot from the smoke was all over the lab, data center, desktops, inventory, everything. Quite ironic for a company that plays in the data security space! Added to this was the fact that the majority of investors were also being “cashed out.” To make matters worse, it was a time when the industry was deeply entangled in the clutches of the recession. For anyone else, this would have spelled doomsday but for Dr. Pruthi this was a chance for a new beginning. A chance to undo legacy systems and build a new infrastructure and business that is great! Up from the ashes grow the roses of success!

Business means different things to different people. For some it is trying to make a quick buck and exiting and for some it is taking the business to a successful IPO. But Dr. Pruthi has a different ideology. He believes that it is the creation of a lasting and successful business able to withstand the test of time that matters, and not the temporary wins and losses. “People often assume that having great technology and a business is the same. But it is not. A great business is one which creates wealth, sustains growth, rewards the people who are a part of the enterprise and continues to create a difference in the lives of those who utilize your offerings. It is about creating a legacy. At the end of the day, I want to build a great business and for me the journey has just started,” says Dr. Pruthi. It is with this vision that he has steered NIKSUN from a humble startup in 1997 to a beckoning force within the network security space.

Headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, NIKSUN today is the only network security and performance monitoring solution that is like the DVR and Google for the network. Just like a DVR, NIKSUN can simultaneously capture and store network traffic in real-time at up to 20 Gbps rates. Just like Google, NIKSUN inspects, mines, correlates and indexes everything traversing the network at multi-gigabit rates, gaining the deepest insight of security threats, performance issues, and compliance risks. Using a single console, just like going to google.com, NIKSUN also provides 100 percent search, analysis, and visibility across networks, providing incredible power with a simple click and real-time contextual visibility. With its forensic insight, NIKSUN is turning a whole new chapter in the industry’s approach towards network security.

The Great Security Challenge

The Internet is one of the greatest revolutions of our time but has also brought with it many challenges to governments, law enforcement agencies, and public as well as private organizations. From the constant barrage of attacks by nations and organizations to penetrate critical information assets and planting malware to siphon information; to rouge cyber thieves trying to hack into financial accounts of those who are influential, cyber threats are here to stay. Based upon the intensity with which the world has become reliant on the Internet, it is safe to say that cyber space is the new battleground. In addition, the explosion of mobile devices and remote access technologies, make protecting data much more difficult, and managing the current technologies more time consuming and less effective. The number of IP devices — from 1 billion in 2010 — is expected to reach 50 billion in 2020. For cyber criminals this is just the expansion of their playground. The good news is that organizations are awakening to the need for more robust security measures and are adopting them rapidly, but are they sure that these steps are enough?