Samaresh Nair is a visionary cybersecurity leader with over two decades of experience shaping the future of network security. His career spans engineering and product management roles at some of the most influential technology companies, including Nokia, Nortel Networks, Juniper Networks, and, for the past seven years, Palo Alto Networks.
At Palo Alto Networks, Samaresh leads third-party testing engagements for the Network Security (NetSec) group, ensuring that the company’s Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) deliver unmatched security efficacy and performance. He has been instrumental in evolving the way independent evaluations are conducted—partnering with leading global test organizations to integrate real-world, sophisticated attack scenarios into assessments, and raising the bar for transparency, trust, and technical rigor.
Before joining Palo Alto Networks, Samaresh played a key role at Juniper Networks as a founding member of the team that developed the SRX firewall platforms—widely deployed by global ISPs as 4G LTE and GI firewalls. He went on to lead teams responsible for testing high-performance platforms, advanced flow technologies, and high-availability architectures critical to service providers and large enterprises.
A strong advocate for industry collaboration, Samaresh serves on the board of NetSecOPEN and contributed to RFC-9411, the industry’s first officially recognized performance testing standard for NGFWs—now adopted as a formal IETF RFC. His work directly supports MSPs and MSSPs in making informed, data-driven security decisions backed by independently validated performance and efficacy results.
Samaresh holds a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering from George Washington University and a Business Administration certificate from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
With a career defined by innovation, industry influence, and a commitment to independent, transparent testing, Samaresh continues to help service providers, managed security providers, and enterprises strengthen their defenses in an era of AI-powered and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.