In a call with analysts on Tuesday, Zscaler CEO Jai Chaudhary criticized cybersecurity vendors who claim to offer SASE — but are really offering ‘nothing more than a virtual firewall and VPN in the cloud.’ .

Zscaler CEO Jai Choudhary on Monday criticized cybersecurity vendors that claim to offer strong remote access security and networking capabilities through a secure access service edge platform – but actually fail to provide a strong SaaS offering. They are falling far short of meeting the actual needs.
Choudhary said customers are not being protected from these fraudulent offers, though he did not specify the names of the vendors he says are providing “so-called SASE” in his remarks during Zscaler’s quarterly call with analysts. Are doing.
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In addition to SD-WAN, security capabilities commonly considered essential in SASE include Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA). Increasingly, many industry players are emphasizing a single-vendor SASE approach, in which one company provides all SASE capabilities as an integrated platform.
However, during the call on Monday, Chaudhary suggested that some vendors are falsely claiming to offer SASE platforms, leaving customers with inadequate security for their distributed workforce.
“Legacy security vendors are offering disjointed point products under the guise of a platform,” he said.
For example, Chaudhary said he was recently told by a Fortune 50 customer that a “legacy” firewall vendor sold the company a “so-called platform” – but when the customer attempted to implement the technology, ” He found that it was nothing more than consolidated bills.”
He said, “No wonder so many enterprises are being breached despite spending billions of dollars on so-called SASE security, which is nothing more than virtual firewalls and VPNs in the cloud.”
Chaudhary made the comments when Zscaler reported financial results for the company’s first quarter fiscal year 2025 ended October 31, which exceeded Wall Street expectations.
Zscaler disclosed revenue of $628 million for the quarter, up 26 percent from the same period a year earlier and about $22 million above analyst consensus estimates.
Chaudhary said on Monday that in addition to strong growth in Zscaler’s core zero-trust security offerings in Security Service Edge (SSE) and SASE, the company is seeing growing demand for data security and other emerging product lines.
Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is growing twice as fast [ARR in] Our core products,” he said.
In terms of its business with channel partners, Zscaler is increasing the number of “strategic” partners it works with, Chaudhary said. And specifically, “Joint partner offerings are expanding [core Zscaler products] Now add our emerging products,” he said.
Ultimately, “with a more mature pipeline, a stronger sales team and growing partner engagements, I believe we remain on track to increase sales productivity and achieve strong growth,” Choudhary said.