Regional Manager/ Service Delivery Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
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Published:Feb 27, 2022
What Is SASE?
Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE (pronounced “sassy”), is an emerging cybersecurity concept that Gartner first described in the August 2019 report.
SASE is the convergence of wide-area networking or WAN, and network security services like CASB, FWaaS and Zero Trust, into a single, cloud-delivered service model.
According to Gartner, “SASE capabilities are delivered as a service-based upon the identity of the entity, real-time context, enterprise security/compliance policies and continuous assessment of risk/trust throughout the sessions. Identities of entities can be associated with people, groups of people (branch offices), devices, applications, services, IoT systems or edge computing locations.”
A SASE architecture identifies users and devices, applies policy-based security, and delivers secure access to the appropriate application or data. This approach allows organizations to apply secure access (no matter where their users, applications, or devices are located).
The SASE security model can help your organization in several ways:
Flexibility: With a cloud-based infrastructure, you can implement and deliver security services such as threat prevention, web filtering, sandboxing, DNS security, credential theft prevention, data loss prevention and next-generation firewall policies.
Cost savings: Instead of buying and managing multiple point products, utilizing a single platform will dramatically reduce your costs and IT resources.
Reduced complexity: You can simplify your IT infrastructure by minimizing the number of security products your IT team has to manage, update and maintain, consolidating your security stack into a cloud-based network security service model.
Increased performance: With a cloud infrastructure, you can easily connect to wherever resources are located. Access to apps, the internet and corporate data is available globally.
Zero Trust: A Zero Trust approach to the cloud removes trust assumptions when users, devices and applications connect. A SASE solution will provide complete session protection, regardless of whether a user is on or off the corporate network.
Threat prevention: With full content inspection integrated into a SASE solution, you benefit from more security and visibility into your network.
Data protection: Implementing data protection policies within a SASE framework helps prevent unauthorized access and abuse of sensitive data.
Secure Web Gateways are crucial for companies as they protect against web-based threats by enforcing security policies. Businesses should consider several key aspects when choosing an SWG:
Comprehensive threat protection
Data loss prevention
Cloud application control
Advanced security analytics
Ease of integration with existing systems
The importance of SWGs lies in their ability to provide rob...
Secure Web Gateways are crucial for companies as they protect against web-based threats by enforcing security policies. Businesses should consider several key aspects when choosing an SWG:
Comprehensive threat protection
Data loss prevention
Cloud application control
Advanced security analytics
Ease of integration with existing systems
The importance of SWGs lies in their ability to provide robust security by filtering malicious traffic and blocking access to unsafe websites. They act as a barrier between the company network and potential external threats, ensuring that only legitimate traffic is allowed. This capability is essential for safeguarding sensitive data and maintaining a secure environment for users. Additionally, SWGs offer granular control over web access policies, allowing companies to enforce compliance with regulatory requirements. This tailored control ensures that employees adhere to security practices, reducing the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access.Furthermore, SWGs are vital in the modern workplace where cloud adoption is prevalent. With more applications moving to the cloud, traditional network security solutions are not sufficient. Secure Web Gateways address this challenge by offering visibility and control over cloud applications. This functionality is important for detecting shadow IT and preventing data leakage from non-sanctioned apps. Their real-time threat intelligence and the ability to provide detailed security analytics empower organizations to make informed decisions, thus enhancing the overall security posture. As cyber threats become more sophisticated, the importance of having an SWG to provide continuous protection becomes indisputable.
We use Cisco Umbrella for a secure web gateway. It keeps our users safe and secure and helps us remediate threats quickly and stay virus free. Our end-users are protected from going to any type of malicious site, whether they are in-house or if they're remote and working from home.
Umbrella protects the outgoing data of our company and has excellent reporting features. We have good insights...
We use Cisco Umbrella for a secure web gateway. It keeps our users safe and secure and helps us remediate threats quickly and stay virus free. Our end-users are protected from going to any type of malicious site, whether they are in-house or if they're remote and working from home.
Umbrella protects the outgoing data of our company and has excellent reporting features. We have good insights on any issues related to outgoing data, like whether there were any phishing or dangerous sites connected.
Umbrella's single pane of glass management is great. From that single pane, you can view what is happening security-wise, such as what was being blocked. You can also check for your roaming users.
One of my favorite features is to be able to enter a website url and get an overall summary of how safe that website is. This lets us look further into that site and investigate the risk score that Umbrella decided. We can just analyze these websites and ensure that we are blocking harmful sites and unblocking safe sites.
I would say that Cisco Umbrella’s top benefits are:
Stability: It is robust and high performing.
Scalability: The solution is cloud based and scales easily.
Easy deployment: We quickly set it up for thousands of users without having to physically touch all the endpoints.
Lightweight: Although it is always running in the background, it doesn’t use a high amount of resources.
The only thing I can think of that I would like to improve would be to have a bit more flexibility in policy creation.
Cisco Umbrella is a comprehensive and very secure solution. It functions very efficiently and effectively - I definitely recommend it.
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