SASE is now leading the cybersecurity industry – Latest Digital Transformation Trends | Cloud News

As predicted by Gartner, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) has experienced tremendous growth since its introduction in 2019. And with the pandemic worldwide, cloud migration became a significant issue for many organizations as they became increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats.  

Even previously admired security infrastructure became futile in the face of new and more sophisticated attacks that surfaced. In addition, the perimeter-based system stopped working since the world moved to a remote and hybrid work system. In response, IT security experts and companies were forced to improve their delivery to effectively combat new and rising challenges such as DDoS attacks, ransomware, phishing, password theft, keylogging, and all forms of malicious attacks. 

To create an adaptable system that counters the rapidly evolving cybercrime landscape, many cybersecurity companies have adopted the SASE framework.  

The SASE Architecture 

SASE is broadly known as Secure Access Service Edge, and it is a cybersecurity architecture that intersects network and threat management tools to create a consolidated, cloud-based cybersecurity solution.  

SASE incorporates these network and security services with SD-WAN to increase performance on digitals and secure network users and data as they are accessed from anywhere and at any time. And that is all entirely bundled in a cloud-delivery service framework. 

SASE compiles vital security components such as SD-WAN (Software-defined Wide Area Network), CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker), ZTNA (Zero Trust Network Access), FWaaS (Firewall-as-a-Service), and SWG (Secure Web Gateways). However, it is not limited to these components.  

So, instead of businesses subscribing to individual security components from vendors, organizations can have the SASE architecture deliver a host of cloud-based security components for more assured security. As a result, the SASE solutions by NordLayer have become one of the most preferred options for business owners. As a result, Gartner has predicted that this network and security architecture will have a market growth at a CAGR of 36% and reach almost $15 billion by 2025. In 2022, it has become the leading cybersecurity industry. 

Why Organizations Consider SASE Now 

The pandemic hurled new security and network challenges on businesses and IT security teams. And with many company workforces settling to either working from home entirely or on a hybrid basis, the old security framework instantly became immensely porous to diverse and newly emerged forms of attacks. Moreover, more issues are surfacing around cryptocurrency, NFTs, social engineering, and ransomware. Hence, organizations now need to advance their security posture with SASE. 

Today, a security landscape constantly increases in complexity and severity. However, SASE addresses most of the struggles faced by businesses today, and here are a few: 

Hybrid Workforce Support 

Remote and hybrid systems had existed in a low range before the pandemic. However, during the massive exodus of the company workforce into remote work, alternative popular security postures became weak. Still, SASE surfaced to remedy the situation by offering edge-to-edge security to network resources. In essence, while sustaining remote work systems, SASE helps uphold and defend them.  

SASE can deliver top-level solutions to network access by replacing traditional VPN solutions with Zero Trust methods used to secure resources by taking out implicit trust during access requests to network resources. This results in a scalable, flexible cloud-delivered access solution that can adapt to employees working from their convenient location. 

Network Transformation  

The SASE implementation strategy involves alternating their traditional framework and moving to a cloud-based system. The key focus is to deliver lower latency, cloud-delivered network security structure, and cost-effectiveness. SASE simplifies centralized networking control by deploying the Zero Trust strategy and converging security services to improve the operations’ consistency. SASE scales remote access infrastructure capacity to improve problems with efficiency, which are generated as a result of an increasing hybrid workforce, decommissioning legacy technologies, and consolidations. 

SASE is not only beneficial to the conventional third and fourth generation of mobile network technology, it is also helpful to 5G and can help edge computing receive branch-to-cloud security, which can also help in edge computing security integration. With this, other business drivers, such as 5G and IoT, will be enabled. Furthermore, companies that have moved to a cloud-based network and security architecture will enjoy a wide range of innovative benefits. For instance, you can consider financial institutions delivering cryptocurrency exchange services as a bonus to banking services from the same portal. The SASE model allows the implementation of such strategies without worrying about security. 

Third-Party Access and M&A 

Organizations deploying the SASE architecture can now work in a defined and extended internal workforce policies to third-party users and contractors. For instance, Zero Trust permits equal authentication with good insight and control over data usage, availability, and resource security. Businesses can create specific policies by user type, application, and group. SASE also helps control networks’ potential infiltration by threat actors who deploy machines to steal credentials and weaponize APIs. SASE makes access safe without affecting performance and can also help provide integrated access management through identity provider solutions. This can also be considered together with organizations involved in acquisition or merger. It creates speedy access and transition for employees from both sides. 

Scarce IT Security Experts 

The reduced rate of qualified IT personnel, especially as a result of the increasing security demand in the digital space, has mounted more significant pressure on skilled professionals. Harnessing the SASE model, a lower number of unintegrated tools in the IT and security stack fill in for the low availability of on-site technical resources and provide support and security for critical business applications. And with a reduced need for physical tools, organizations can lower the cost of bringing experts on board — and in fact, reduce the workload on IT security teams. 

The need to employ new security talents is still highly placed; however, with SASE, the job market is tighter than ever. Selecting a managed security provider to manage a SASE solution can reduce the gap in skills even further. You’ll also be able to reduce time consumption when you extend your security team with a strategic cybersecurity provider, as quality providers can deploy required resources when needed. While it may take a gradual process and effort for companies to transit to the SASE cloud-native model, skilled providers can speed up the process and make it much easy to achieve.  

Equipped Leaders for Future Threats and Opportunities  

The recent emergence of enormous loopholes in security infrastructure around the world also presents new challenges that have caused leaders to embrace new solutions to meet threats. These leaders take advantage of robust solutions like SASE to transform the modern digital enterprise, making it a top desire for cybersecurity worldwide. 

Organizations that deploy a SASE model but not without allowing compromise can consider a dual vendor method with WAN services from leading SD-WAN and cloud-based security from leading SSE providers to get the best option that will make the company ultimately attain its digital transformation goal. 

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