Web browsers are applications modern companies use the most, but they are often the applications companies have the least control over. That's why Island offers the Enterprise Browser, a Chromium-based web browser built for total organizational policy compliance.
At Black Hat 2023 in Las Vegas, Island co-founder and CEO Mike Fey spoke to Security Weekly's Bill Brenner about why he came out of retirement to build a browser designed for business, why every company should use such a browser and how companies should handle the AI revolution.
"The browser is this amazing thing," Fey says. "If you think about how it came into companies, don't think about it like a consumer but like an enterprise, it showed up as just part of the operating system."
Back in the early days, Fey goes on, the browser was looking at just "little static web pages." But as browsers grew more sophisticated and more dangerous, companies first surrounded browsers with security software and then moved more and more of their applications to run inside browsers.
"As of late, all of our major applications are delivered to that browser platform," Fey says. "It became our operating system. But nobody invited it in as the operating system."
Browsers weren't designed to be safe, Fey explains. To make them safe, we put browsers and their data through an insane maze of security detours — sandboxing, isolation, virtualization, network backhauling, decryption, re-encryption, port disabling, mobile device management and on and on.
Fey had retired, he says, when his co-founder came to him with a simple idea.
"What if we change the way browsers work?" Fey says. "And the more I thought about it, it was so compelling I had to join up with him. . Its time has obviously come."
Island is so confident in the ability of The Enterprise Browser to protect the enterprise that it has incorporated ChatGPT into the browser as a personal assistant. Fey doesn't see that as dangerous, but instead as a productivity booster.
"There's thousands of great use cases for AI, and there's a couple that aren't so great," he says. "We integrated it in so you could have full control at a policy level over what that user experience is, does and integrates with that AI environment."
This segment is sponsored by Island. Visit https://securityweekly.com/islandbh to learn more about them!
The full interview is above. Notable points along the way:
00:00 - Mike Fey, Island co-founder and CEO
00:38 - Island: Disrupting browser's role in cybersecurity
05:33 - BYOD vs. Enterprise Browser: Trust, Privacy, Productivity
06:37 - Integration of ChatGPT with AI policy control
08:34 - Cybersecurity professionals must find productive ways to use AI
09:58 - Cybersecurity guardrails: appreciation, control, situational awareness
11:37 - Great week, busy days ahead
