There are several reasons why you should implement SASE for your company. Since the introduction of the hybrid working model after the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have faced challenges keeping their networks, security systems, and IT infrastructure secure. This problem can be controlled by implementing a new secure access service that can converge networking and security capabilities into a single-service cloud-native architecture.
More and more companies are adopting SASE technology. For them, this technology is scalable, flexible, and provides speed and security. SASE is undoubtedly the future of network security in the cloud. With its minimum hardware requirements, it is helping companies in saving on equipment as well as financial and human resources.
What is SASE?
SASE is an abbreviation for Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). This cybersecurity framework provides robust enterprise network security using Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN). The most attractive benefits of SASE include simplicity, improved network reliability, secure cloud access, edge-to-edge security, consistent policy enforcement, network-wide data protection, and not needing traditional VPNs.
This technology is built keeping in mind the modern cybersecurity needs, including the network components, Zero Trust Approach principles, and cloud-native security components. Implementing a technology like SASE is critical to healthcare, financial, and government organizations, considering that they handle sensitive user information. This includes their banking details, personal details, and medical records. This data is the most appealing to cybercriminals since they can sell it to competitors for a large sum.
What are the components of SASE?
SASE is made to provide optimized performance along the Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) edge. It converges cloud-natively embedded security capabilities with the SD-WAN network components. To provide a universal cybersecurity solution, multiple components of SASE work together.
These include Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Software-defined WAN, and Firewall as a Service (FWaaS). The SASE framework has the potential to serve as a foundational element to zero trust security and accelerate digital business processes.
Benefits of SASE for your company
Adopting the SASE approach can help companies with many problems. These problems include poor performance of business applications, overloaded fragmented security point solutions, an increasing number of remote workers working in unmanaged environments, and network performance issues. SASE is your one-stop solution for improved application performance, consolidation of firewall management, improved connections, and greater security.
Along with all the modern solutions, SASE also uses traditional security approaches such as SSL/TLS encryption, VPNs, brokering services for web applications, firewalls, antivirus, and malware detections. This significantly reduces the possibility of data loss or leakage. Unlike traditional IT systems, SASE doesn’t require downloading, installing, or maintaining complex endpoints clients.
There are innumerable benefits of SASE. With the ever-increasing cyber threats, companies are now forced to upgrade their infrastructure for security. Solutions like VPNs are no longer ideal for use. The companies now need enhanced support for remote endpoint workflows while ensuring security. Thanks to the SASE technology, it is now possible to achieve client-to-cloud security based on user context and identity.
Users are bound to follow centralized policies regardless of their locations. This ensures that only the authorized users get access and all connections are encrypted end-to-end. SASE can also be integrated with various sales and CRM platforms. When your company uses SASE, compliance with standards and mandates, including PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR, significantly increases.
Future of SASE
At first, the implementation of SASE may seem sophisticated. But the companies need to understand that SASE is a framework that must be implemented over time. Besides the technology, it requires a solid organizational attitude in which all the employees participate, and there is strict supervision. SASE is ideal for any size of company. This includes startups, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), large enterprises, government organizations, resellers, and service providers (SP).
The IT and security leadership needs to identify the company’s needs, understand the basic SASE architecture requirements, and classify the design and users. Since businesses increasingly depend on cloud-based applications, 40 percent of companies are expected to adopt SASE solutions by 2024. SASE technology is created so it is always available no matter where the users are located or what connection or device they use.
Conclusion
SASE enables a company to manage its networking and security with complete confidence while managing a work-from-anywhere (WFA) workforce. The agility provided by SASE allows companies to improve their efficiency and productivity. The employees can play their roles and add value to the company wherever and whenever they want. All this while having the confidence of having safe and secure data and connections.
It helps companies secure access at the accelerating rate of cloud adoption. It provides scalable performance along with security, networking, and observability functions. Along with all the IT-related benefits, implementation of SASE is also cost-effective for start-up businesses.