When the pandemic forced companies to shift entire teams to remote work, it set off a series of events that left network teams scrambling to secure work-from-home environments. Now, IT security teams are asking if it’s possible to catch up. The answer may lie in secure access service edge (SASE).
Unmanaged endpoint security is causing new challenges, particularly when companies continue pursuing cyber security strategies that are designed for traditional network infrastructures. The perimeter has completely disappeared. Line-of-business managers and their teams find that cloud solutions are so easy to deploy that they are able to launch new tools without going through IT. This creates blind spots in the security as IT teams race to integrate security tools with network management.
Supporting Cloud Migration With SASE
There are plenty of endpoint security and cyber security tools on the market that promise to resolve these concerns, but they tend to resemble just another set of tools to tack onto what is already being used. What companies need is an integrated, multipurpose solution that provides the three key aspects of secure cloud migration:
- Security
No matter where the employee is working, they can consistently and securely access network resources.
- Scalability
As the company grows, the tools grow with them with the ability to add users and functionality as needed.
- Simplicity
Securing remote teams is easy and effective.
Even before the pandemic hit, companies were realizing that cloud adoption was dictating a different kind of security strategy, with SASE emerging as an approach that could create a holistic approach to securing the network. SASE combines software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) with firewall as a service (FaaS), cloud access security brokers, zero trust network access (ZTNA), and secure web gateways. While it uses a variety of tools, SASE is an integrated strategy that resolves the combined challenges of remote work and cloud migration.
Experts say that because SASE is cloud-based, one of the benefits is its ability to be scaled up or down based on usage needs. It’s a good fit for companies going through rapid change, which during a pandemic may include every company.
Implementing SASE is not a one-and-done project, or even a step-by-step single implementation. It may be a gradual journey for some companies that have fragmented cyber security challenges and a growing list of needs for better protection. SASE provides a better approach than some of the multi-provider solutions that end up widening the security gaps rather than improving the situation.
SASE offers great benefits, but companies should be cautious to partner with providers that understand the evolution of the approach as new tools and implementations are developed. The key to a great experience with SASE is the ability to integrate services into a single solution through application programming interfaces (APIs), as well as the ability to choose the specific components that match well with the company’s existing solutions.
If you would like to learn more about pursuing SASE for your company, contact us at Independent Connections. We can help you determine where your security may have some vulnerability and discuss the right approach to safe and secure network access.