The workload boundary has moved into the cloud. But the attack boundary has not moved with it.

Zscaler’s acquisition of SquareX is a smart move, and it deserves applause. It’s a clear bet on where work actually happens today: inside the browser. And it’s a clear acknowledgement that browser security is no longer an add-on. It belongs inside the Zero Trust platform.

In many ways, Island set the stage for this moment.

Island proved something the market needed to see in production: if you make the browser a first-class control point, security and user experience can move forward together. It validated that the browser can be governed with session awareness, policy, and guardrails that align with how modern work actually flows.

Zscaler’s move says the next thing out loud: this capability is becoming foundational.

But here’s the part that gets missed when the industry gets excited about a new control point.

The workload boundary has moved into the cloud.
But the attack boundary has not moved with it.

Attackers still start where they always have: on the endpoint.

The browser is the conduit. The endpoint is the battleground.

I do not subscribe to “the browser is the primary attack surface” as a universal truth. The browser is increasingly the conduit to the workload. That’s a meaningful shift, but it doesn’t replace the endpoint as the most vulnerable layer.

Secure browsers, isolation, and inline controls reduce exposure. They can shrink the blast radius of risky content and make SaaS behavior easier to govern.

Yet every secure browser session still depends on the integrity of what it runs on:

• The OS posture at boot.
• The absence of drift and unauthorized change.
• The reliability of posture signals feeding identity, SSE, and conditional access.
• The reality that endpoint compromise can undermine upstream policy decisions.

So yes, in a world where security is moving into the browser, the endpoint becomes more critical, not less. Because you are now funneling more valuable workflows through sessions that still inherit the strengths and weaknesses of the device underneath.

We are innovating the network and browser layer at high speed. The endpoint is still running last decade’s playbook.

Most enterprises are moving fast on the network side:

• Secure Service Edge (SSE) adoption.
• Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) strategies.
• identity-driven access decisions.
• secure browser initiatives for unmanaged and third-party access.

This is the right direction. And the Island story followed by the Zscaler SquareX move validates that the momentum is real.

But the endpoint is still too often treated as “whatever the user has,” defended by layered agents, patch cycles, and best-effort policy.

That gap isn’t theoretical anymore.

Traditional operating systems drift. Local admin reality persists. Agents collide. Telemetry becomes inconsistent. And when posture is uncertain, every downstream Zero Trust decision becomes less trustworthy.

If your cloud security stack is making high-confidence decisions, but your endpoints are producing low-confidence truth, you have built a modern security architecture on an unreliable execution plane.

The missing link is endpoint innovation that matches the pace of SSE and secure browser innovation.

This is where IGEL belongs in the conversation, and it fits alongside what Zscaler and Island represent rather than competing with them.

IGEL’s Secure Endpoint OS Platform is built to be the execution plane that closes the trust gap.

Put simply: Zscaler secures access and sessions in the cloud. Island helped prove the browser can be governed. IGEL makes the endpoint worthy of that trust.

That’s the chain. That’s the missing link.

The urgency is now, not later.

Zscaler didn’t buy SquareX to prepare for a distant future. They did it because the shift is already here.

If your workloads are in SaaS and your users live in browser sessions, then endpoints have become the most direct path to identity, sessions, and data. That’s why the endpoint remains the most targeted and most compromised layer in real environments.

So, the question is not whether you are investing in SSE, SASE, or secure browser controls.

The question is: are you innovating the endpoint with the same urgency and intent?

Because the workload boundary moved. The attack boundary didn’t.

Want to see what this looks like in practice?

See how this “cloud workload, endpoint battleground” reality gets solved with a modern execution plane that complements SSE, SASE, and secure browser strategies.
Join us at IGEL Now & Next Miami, March 30-April 2, 2026. Register Now!