Cyber attacks on businesses unsurprisingly continue to increase year after year, as attack surfaces expand because of the growing digitalization and interconnection of enterprise assets and services across geographical locations. Enterprises have been strengthening their cybersecurity, but many are not doing enough to establish adequate protection.
A report based on a survey conducted by Censuswide shows that companies are not as cyber-resilient as they think. While a staggering 80% of respondents expressed confidence in their organization’s cyber resilience, the reality of their cybersecurity strategy performance paints a different picture. Many have yet to adopt advanced security solutions to address new threats.
One of the cybersecurity solutions enterprises should consider is Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), designed to provide a cloud-native and scalable approach to network security. It ensures secure remote access, reduces the complexity of enterprise network security, and improves performance by routing traffic efficiently and applying security policies close to the user.
Below are four of the best SASE solutions for enhancing the cyber defense of today’s connected enterprises. These solutions deliver the best combination of functions to enhance security posture while simplifying IT operations and optimizing user experiences.
Table of Contents
- Check Point
- Zscaler
- Cato Network
- Netskope
Conclusion
Check Point: Unified Management and Seamless Cloud Integration
Offering one of the most capable comprehensive SASE solutions, Check Point integrates network security, data protection, and threat prevention in one cloud-delivered platform called Harmony Connect. This powerful but intuitive SASE solution is created with a fully cloud-native architecture to ensure scalability and seamless security enforcement without the limitations associated with traditional solutions. It features global Points of Presence (PoPs) to achieve low-latency connections and maximum availability for users regardless of location.
Check Point delivers unified security management and smart automation. It provides a single dashboard for monitoring and enforcing security policies across branches, users, and cloud resources. This is paired with an automated threat intelligence system called Check Point ThreatCloud, a massive threat intelligence database with real-time security updates. It is also supplemented by an AI-powered automated incident response system that includes advanced security analytics, automated security playbooks, and proactive threat hunting. Additionally, it has a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) system that tracks and regulates shadow IT usage.
Moreover, Check Point features sophisticated functions associated with the best SASE solutions in the market. These include agentless and agent-based Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), DNS security and URL filtering, identity-centric access control, and continuous monitoring that enforces the least privilege access policy. Check Point’s SASE system also has advanced SD-WAN integration that maintains encrypted traffic inspection, direct-to-cloud SD-WAN connectivity, and dynamic traffic routing that automatically seeks out and uses the nearest PoP.
Zscaler: Zero Trust SASE for Dependable Network Security
Zscaler, a noted cybersecurity solution provider, provides a SASE product designed to enable enterprises to securely connect users, apps, and devices without the need for traditional network security appliances. It brings an innovative approach to SD-WAN to significantly diminish business risk.
Zscaler leverages the principle of zero trust to simplify IT defense. It enforces zero trust security on servers, operational technology (OT) devices, IoT appliances, and guest users who access enterprise services in branches. The proprietary Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange technology dependably connects users, branches, and cloud services without relying on routed overlays and VPNs. It ensures that users and devices are constantly verified and enforces microsegmentation to provide app-level access instead of full network access, preventing threats from penetrating through lateral movements.
Like most other leading SASE solutions, Zscaler harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to undertake smart threat scanning and automated responses. It performs AI-augmented inline traffic inspection, sandboxing, and behavioral analysis. It also features CASB for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) protection, DNS security and URL filtering, secure SD-WAN integration, adaptive risk-based access, and firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS) for cloud-based protection.
Cato Networks: High-Performance Secure Networking
A pioneer in the field of SASE, Cato Networks offers a single-vendor Secure Access Service Edge platform designed to address the complexity and high costs of networking and security solutions. It provides a unified networking and security architecture that ensures robust protection, scalability, and simplicity. This cloud-native and fully cloud-delivered SASE system provides the advantages of latency-reducing single-pass processing and the seamless integration of SD-WAN, remote access, and security.
One of the most essential features of the SASE solution from Cato Networks is its global private backbone that consists of more than 70 distributed PoPs. With this, connections do not rely on the public internet, with Cato Networks optimizing traffic routing to reduce congestion and maximize network performance. It also has built-in WAN optimization to bolster application performance by limiting latency and packet losses. Additionally, this private backbone provides guaranteed SLA performance to ensure consistent connectivity for global enterprises. It also includes built-in WAN optimization to enhance app performance and reduce latency.
Like the other leading options, the Cato Networks SASE platform is created with enterprise-grade security features, including ZTNA for secure remote access, CASB, FWaaS, advanced threat protection, and Secure Web Gateway to ensure formidable protection against web-based threats. It also comes with AI-powered threat intelligence, real-time security analytics, and data loss prevention capabilities.
Netskope
Netskope, a well-known cloud security provider, has expanded its offerings with Netskope One SASE. This fully converged Secure Access Service Edge platform combines its Security Service Edge (SSE) platform with SD-WAN capabilities. This product emphasizes a balance between security, agility, and IT simplification. It provides a well-rounded SASE solution that enables secure, high-performance access to web apps, SaaS, public clouds, and private applications.
Netskope One SASE provides cloud-native security to protect enterprises with multi-cloud environments and remote and hybrid workforces. Its cloud-native architecture ensures scalability and low latency. It features ZTNA for secure remote access with app-level access control, user and device identity verification, and seamless cloud integration. It has CASB for extensive security visibility and comprehensive SaaS and IaaS security. Additionally, it includes FWaaS with Layer 7 application filtering and an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) for comprehensive network defense.
Leveraging machine learning, Netskope enhances threat protection through advanced inline SSL decryption at scale to examine encrypted traffic without performance compromises. It also undertakes AI-powered behavioral analysis and uses sandboxing to prevent threats from accessing networks by exploiting various security vulnerabilities.
Conclusion
Combining network security and connectivity under a single cloud-native framework, SASE emerges as one of the most important modern cybersecurity solutions for enterprises, which should take it into account as they expand their digital footprints and, consequently, their attack surfaces.
These solutions represent the best of what SASE has to offer. While other vendors may only deliver ‘SASE-like’ capabilities, the solutions highlighted here align with the true promise of a fully integrated Secure Access Service Edge framework, representing the best combination of features and functions, from zero trust security to high-performance connectivity, WAN optimization, data protection, advanced threat protection and threat intelligence, and seamless SD-WAN integration.
Image: AI-generated, Freepik
