Check Point founder Schlomo Kramer is launching a new cloud security firm with former Imperva colleague Gur Shatz as demand for traditional on premise firewall security diminishes. Cato Networks will offer a new cloud security concept that’s been dubbed Network Security as a Service (NSaaS).

The Cato Cloud has two complementary layers. One, the Cato Cloud Network, is based on a global, geographically distributed network of points of presence (PoPs). The second, Cato Security Services, is a suite of network security (such as firewalls, VPNs, URL filtering) delivered through the cloud as an integrated managed service.

Cato Networks’ software creates an encrypted network out of all the disparate elements of the connected enterprise, such as branch offices, remote locations, data centres and mobile users. The last two groups in that list have changed the model of security, according to Kramer, since the liquidity of the network has been exacerbated by the virtual nature of systems residing in data centres and the increasing prominence of mobile users. With new virtual machines being spun up in their thousands and mobile workers multiplying in both numbers and computing capacity, firewalls are not the right solution to this moveable vulnerability problem, according to Kramer.

The Internet of Things will only exacerbate security problems, according to a Cato Networks statement. Research commissioned by Cato showed that maintenance, costs and the complexity of managing policies for multiple locations is too challenging for up to 57% of security professionals.

Companies that use a variety of cloud services can tie their hybrid clouds into a secure network and forget about having to maintain firewalls or invest in expensive network security, according to Cato.

Cato would allow retail chains, which typically have hundreds of locations each with a multiplicity of devices, to securely connect directly to the cloud for Internet access.

Cato raised $20 million in financing led by Aspect Ventures and will launch its new cloud security offering around September 2016 with co-founder Kramer investing $4 million of his own money.