Securing Remote Work for Business Growth at Valuence Group with Netskope × BYOD

Valuence Technologies has expanded its business through a strong development organization led by highly skilled engineers. Looking back on this period, Keita Kido, Executive Officer of the Corporate IT Department / AX Business Division, explains that as remote work became established during the COVID‑19 pandemic, external audits pointed out issues related to endpoint security.

“Strengthening remote work security requires investment. From an ROI (return on investment) perspective, we examined both cost reduction and IT governance. We have several hundred contractors. Compared with providing company-issued PCs to everyone, our analysis showed that building a zero-trust environment by introducing SASE and allowing BYOD with personally owned PCs would significantly reduce costs. Considering future expansion of personnel, we concluded that distributing dedicated PCs would result in excessive cash outflow, including operational costs. The key to making this work is mitigating the risks associated with BYOD through SASE functionality.”

In May 2021, Netskope was fully deployed. The company began utilizing CASB, along with SWG (Secure Web Gateway) to monitor and filter internet traffic, and DLP (Data Loss Prevention) to prevent sensitive data leakage. Regarding the separation of work and personal use on BYOD devices, Kido explains, “we turn off the Netskope agent installed on BYOD devices during private use. For security reasons, contractors are required to turn the agent on. Without routing traffic through Netskope, they cannot access our development environment.”

Reflecting on the effects of five years of using Netskope, Kido notes, “cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and employees can be lured without realizing it. Netskope detects malware before users reach dangerous sites, protecting both our data and our employees. At the same time, shadow IT—especially AI services—continues to grow. To strengthen control, we registered approved services in the CASB whitelist and prohibited everything else. Additionally, it’s important to ensure that logs are being captured without users being consciously aware of it. By communicating this internally, we’ve helped foster awareness, such as avoiding suspicious websites that could cause information leakage.”

In 2023, the company added the Netskope API, which integrates with cloud services to visualize and control user behavior, enabling unified management of DLP policies. “We also see value in Netskope’s integrated platform, which allows us to use the functions we need, when we need them,” says Kenji Ishida, Deputy Manager of the MIS Section, Corporate IT Department.

Valuence Technologies envisions achieving zero trust through Netskope Private Access (NPA), a cloud-based remote access solution, replacing vulnerable VPNs. However, some customers still require VPN connectivity for communication. In such cases, the company strengthens VPN authentication using electronic certificates with IPSec/SSL VPNs.

Ishida adds that NPA is also attractive for its more granular logging capabilities, “with VPNs, we can only obtain access logs. To capture high-risk logs—such as whether employees are acting maliciously or making mistakes—we are considering NPA. For example, we’d like to implement mechanisms that trigger alerts when cloud storage is shared, regardless of intent. Analyzing logs accumulated by Netskope to identify previously unrecognized risks and refine configurations through a continuous improvement cycle is a key theme going forward.”

Kido emphasizes that there is no finish line in security, “you never know where risks may be lurking, so daily monitoring and control are essential. At the same time, budgets and resources are not unlimited. We will continue to place importance on ROI while evolving the security foundation that supports our business.”

By protecting data and employees from security threats, Netskope will continue to contribute to the further growth of the Valuence Group.