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What are the Use Cases for SASE?

Published on:
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15 min read

Secure Access Service Edge can improve network performance and security measures for remote sites. The best method for securing cloud-based networks is Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) technology. SASE seamlessly combines cloud brokerage, network segmentation, identity management, and robust edge security to meet the demands of modern businesses.

SASE is more than just one app. Rather, it is a cloud-delivered architecture with many practical applications for safeguarding and improving contemporary networks. SASE implementations can address a number of urgent issues that companies are facing.

The nine use examples that follow demonstrate the common problems that modern IT businesses face and how they are using SASE to solve them. This article contains a wealth of additional information on SASE that you might find useful.

  • Use Cases for SASE
    1. Remote Work Access
    2. Enhancing Office Security
    3. Network Security
    4. Supply Chain Security
    5. Guest WiFi Network Security
    6. Global Expansion
    7. Improving Cloud Application Performance
    8. Multi-Cloud Security
    9. User and Device Authentication
  • What is SASE?
  • Why Should You Prefer SASE?
  • Which Sectors use SASE Most?
    • For What Purposes Can the Healthcare Sector Adopt SASE?
    • How Can Branch Offices Be Better Connected Using SASE?
    • How Can Educational Institutions Use SASE?

1. Remote Work Access​

One may argue that had there not been a significant increase in remote work in 2020, SASE would not have come to the attention of IT management as quickly. IT could not avoid reevaluating its network and security infrastructure when offices closed. The demand from distant workers was too much for VPN (Virtual Private Network) systems to handle.

The conventional method for remote work, VPN, is sometimes too costly when used in large quantities; thus, a new strategy was required. Secure Remote Access Service Edge allows you to securely access your company's systems from anywhere on the globe. Rather than redirecting users to a central data center, SASE links them to nearby points of presence (PoPs). SASE establishes a secure network perimeter as opposed to connecting a single user to a single network (like older VPNs do). SDP (Software-Defined Perimeter) may be seen as your exclusive business network, a place where all of your clients and services come together safely and where you are hidden from the public Internet.

For workforces that are dispersed globally, SASE is the best networking option. These days, with remote work, work-from-home options, and hybrid solutions, security systems need to protect a wide range of complicated endpoints and gadgets.

It is easy to provide a remote workforce with secure access when a SASE solution is in place. By consistently implementing Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) principles, IT teams bring remote work under the same security protections as employees who work on-site.

SASE encrypts communications and protects perimeters without depending on antiquated VPN technology. As traffic volume increases, virtual private networks often struggle and experience bottlenecks in the network. They lack lateral threat prevention within network borders and fail to scale efficiently as user groups increase.

SASE takes a more adaptable tack, depending on globally distributed PoPs, SD-WAN networks, and local inspection at each edge node. In comparison to traditional VPNs, this method increases network efficiency while providing stronger threat prevention.

Businesses are not going to go back to how they operated before the epidemic, and a large percentage of workers will probably continue to work from home. For most businesses, investing in SASE is consequently a long-term decision.

2. Enhancing Office Security​

The secure access service edge (SASE) approach to cybersecurity largely protects today's dispersed information systems. This developing security policy acknowledges that organizations today have users working from home, on the road, and in other remote locations. In order to accomplish their business goals, those same customers most likely employ a range of cloud-based services in addition to the data kept in secure corporate data centers. It is no longer prudent or required to route all traffic from remote users through a centralized data center in this scenario.

By moving the execution of security policies off the corporate network and onto the users' local devices, SASE technology facilitates remote work and cloud-based services. Regardless of the device's physical location or network access, end-user devices and other security tools comprehend and consistently implement the organization's security standards. Because remote users are held to the same security standards as those utilizing corporate network equipment, technology teams can now rest easy.

Along with better cloud-delivered network security features like secure web gateways, cloud access security brokers (CASB), data loss prevention (DLP), firewalls as a service (FWaaS), and zero-trust network access (ZTNA) to meet the changing needs of digital transformation for secure access, SASE technology makes it easier for branches to connect to each other and to the central network over very complicated and all-encompassing WAN technologies.

3. Network Security​

Many businesses were finding it difficult to handle an increase in the number of remote workers logging into the network even prior to the epidemic.

Virtual private networks, or VPNs, have been the main means of securely connecting users to protected network resources for most of the last twenty years. Regrettably, scalability was not considered when designing VPNs. As many businesses have subsequently discovered, a small number of VPNs will soon turn into a traffic bottleneck when faced with an inflow of concurrent users, which will negatively impact application performance and add an extra layer of complexity for administrators to manage.

On the other hand, a fundamental feature of what a SASE strategy allows is scalability. In the event that a business has to accommodate thousands of new remote workers at short notice, it may swiftly construct new SASE services in the cloud and do so closer to the locations of those distant workers. Increasing flexibility and enhancing performance are further benefits of deploying security inspection at local edge nodes, which are closer to user locations.

Even SD-WAN, in addition to VPN, helped businesses with a number of scalability and performance-related problems, but it was unable to address the security complexity issue. If anything, SD-WAN made the issue more difficult. Based on DIA, there were a lot more internet access points, and the SD-WAN locations had broadband connections.

SASE may still be applied to geographically constrained enterprises, such as a hospital system with a few dozen clinics in a single metro area or small region. There is an inherent difficulty with an SD-WAN device without native security to strengthen its connection to the internet, even though these situations might not encounter significant performance problems.

In conclusion, SASE was developed to specify how to provide services via the Internet safely and to handle the problems that arise from doing so. It will rapidly change over the next several years as it deals with business connections, routing, and security.

Businesses should spend their money on services that strike a balance between the security needed to safeguard their users, data, and systems and the connectivity savings they demand.

4. Supply Chain Security​

Many firms are required to facilitate third-party organizations' and partner enterprises' access to resources and applications. Examples of needs include application-to-application connectivity between businesses and third-party VPN access for contractors to oversee systems, as well as API access for apps to access Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings.

For these kinds of third-party access use cases, the SASE model can offer a solution that includes a ZTNA adoption cycle. B2B transactions can benefit from a SASE offering that protects autonomous machine or sensor (IoT) communication. These transactions fall under the more general use cases of service-to-service or application-to-application. When it comes to third-party access, clients can use a browser-based solution or a client deployed to the workforce of third parties to take advantage of the consumer-to-service solution that they give to their workforce. More secure B2B communication may be achieved by utilizing the SSE capabilities for DLP in the application-to-application use case.

5. Guest WiFi Network Security​

Companies must provide a technically secure public Wi-Fi service while also safeguarding users from accessing inappropriate and offensive content that might be associated with their brand. SASE safeguards both guest Wi-Fi users and organizations by fortifying the network and guaranteeing adherence to privacy laws and other requirements. Traffic is subjected to security measures and zero-trust access regulations, while the guest Wi-Fi is blocked using a Secure Web Gateway (SWG).

When a connection comes in, zero-trust network access rules are used to make sure that only the most privileged users can access the network and that the attack surface is kept as small as possible. This protects corporate networks and private applications, such as those in public and private clouds, datacenters, and IaaS.

A comprehensive security stack, such as branch FWaaS or Secure Web Gateways, applies application and URL filtering, data protection, and threat prevention to outbound connections in order to safeguard remote and branch users' internet access.

Finally, CASB solutions guarantee complete SaaS visibility with zero trust access control, data security, and sophisticated threat avoidance in order to safeguard SaaS services like cloud email, file sharing, and collaboration tools that are hosted externally but remain private.

6. Global Expansion​

The environment for IT has evolved. When users are working from home offices and apps are being supplied via the cloud, networks that are centered on a data center become obsolete.

Enterprise networks now cannot function without the internet, yet doing so raises security issues that are beyond the scope of on-premise security devices. Security is pushed outside of centralized data centers and into the areas where users, data, and applications are stored using SASE (secure access service edge) designs. Instead of forcing every vehicle to stop for an inspection, it shifts inspections to the flow. Both the end-user experience and security operations costs are reduced by this advancement.

Corporate networks can easily accommodate new branch sites thanks to the SASE design. Backhauling traffic to central data centers is not necessary. Traffic may go quickly and securely to globally dispersed PoPs with SASE. Therefore, speeds should be higher than those of conventional security systems whenever access is required.

SASE does not require data center backhauling because it is cloud-based. Rather, SASE routes traffic via widely dispersed PoPs. There are two parts to these PoPs.

  • Global Network Mesh: To create their own private network of point-of-presences (PoPs), SASE systems make use of software-defined WANs, or SD-WAN. Traffic is intelligently routed via this network mesh once it has been formed, reducing the latency and loss issues that are common with traffic on the public internet. Users with traffic that crosses numerous areas will realize the largest benefits from the global network.
  • Distributed Inspection and Policy Enforcement: In order to support users and applications across several locations, it is necessary to spread security inspection and policy enforcement. Vertical scaling is advantageous for features like remote browser isolation as it can handle irregular demand, but centralized bottlenecks in the cloud can make secure services like data loss protection (DLP) and secure web gateways (SWG) costly. Inspection and enforcement are shifted to the edge (the PoPs) and run on a platform that combines edge compute capabilities with SD-WAN in order to enhance user experience and reduce cloud expenses.

These network topologies also offer end-to-end encryption for each session, as SASE is based on a zero-trust security paradigm that considers the network to be hostile. This covers the application, the PoP, and the endpoint device in their entirety.

SASE promises convergence of network and security, but for this to happen, these PoPs must be able to operate security components consistently across all locations and remain seamlessly linked.

7. Improving Cloud Application Performance​

Many companies used SD-WAN solutions before Gartner brought SASE to the market. Security teams encountered new difficulties even as the company benefited from the cost and performance advantages of a direct internet access approach.

It became necessary for teams to offer services such as URL filtering, intrusion prevention, and firewalls at each branch office. This sometimes entailed setting up and overseeing thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of pieces of security equipment. This method not only runs the danger of being operationally wasteful but also of creating performance bottlenecks.

By linking offices to neighboring cloud gateways, the Security Service Edge component of SASE enables teams to grow branch security. Policies can be implemented by security teams from a cloud location that is centrally maintained. Because SASE suppliers are close to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers and public clouds, they may implement restrictions without affecting performance.

IT can migrate from on-premises to hybrid or multi-cloud environments as gradually as desired without compromising application performance, workspace availability, or security with single-interface administration for SASE components.

As SASE is often implemented as a location-neutral architecture, IT departments may effortlessly relocate their point-of-presence exchanges and situate them nearer to frequently used traffic sources and destinations. Reduced hop counts can result in improved speed, decreased latency, and fewer chances for malicious actors to take advantage of network traffic. Furthermore, it will be increasingly crucial that application performance doesn't compromise security as we move more processing and network resources to the edge.

SASE, which integrates several security features into a single cloud-native service, can aid in establishing more control. Your IT personnel will need to tune and handle fewer stand-alone point solutions as a result of centralizing management capabilities. Internal IT workers may concentrate their attention on higher-level strategic goals by spending less time establishing, monitoring, and supporting various systems when a SASE security stack is managed in the cloud by a single provider.

8. Multi-Cloud Security​

Businesses are embracing multi-cloud strategies more frequently in the dynamic world of digital transformation in order to take advantage of the advantages offered by different cloud service providers. Multi-cloud setups provide scalability and flexibility, but they also present additional security-related difficulties. Here's where Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE, becomes an important component, making security in this intricate multi-cloud environment simpler.

Using SASE is another way to maximize network performance in multi-cloud environments. Multiple cloud suppliers and services are frequently involved in modern networks. The proliferation of vendors can result in business networks that are excessively complicated, ineffective, and have poor user experiences, all of which can affect performance.

SASE provides a way to use multiple-point solutions to get better performance. Cloud resources and other sources of traffic are in close proximity to distributed PoP exchanges. This configuration ensures almost minimal latency between SASE PoPs and critical cloud applications by reducing the number of hops needed for packet transfer.

SASE signifies a fundamental change in our understanding of network security. It provides a uniform and straightforward method for safeguarding multi-cloud settings by fusing networking and security features into a cloud-native service. This service convergence is especially helpful for businesses looking for simplified security without sacrificing functionality.

Important SASE features for Multi-Cloud security are as follows:

  • Architecture of Zero Trust: Every person and device in SASE is regarded as untrustworthy, regardless of where they are, according to the zero trust concept. This lowers the possibility of illegal access by guaranteeing that access to resources is only permitted after rigorous verification.
  • Cloud-Native Security Services: SASE makes use of cloud-native architecture to enable enterprises to use the cloud for the direct deployment of security services. This offers a scalable and adaptable security solution that can adjust to the dynamic nature of multi-cloud settings, doing away with the requirement for on-premises hardware.
  • Integrated SD-WAN Capabilities: SASE improves network performance and reliability by integrating with the Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) in a smooth and reliable manner. Ensuring that traffic across different clouds is optimized for efficiency, lowering latency, and enhancing the user experience depends on this integration.
  • Centralized Policy Management: Security policies are centrally administered over all cloud environments thanks to SASE. This unified control lessens the complexity involved in administering various security rules for each cloud provider and makes it easier to apply uniform security measures.

Advantages of SASE in a Multi-Cloud Environment

  • Increased Control and Visibility: SASE gives managers a consolidated picture of the whole network and gives them access to real-time information about security incidents and network traffic. Proactive threat identification and quick reaction to any security problems are made possible by this increased visibility.
  • Cost-Efficiency: SASE lowers capital and operating costs by doing away with the requirement for multiple-point solutions and on-premises technology. This cost-effectiveness is especially beneficial to businesses that want to maximize their IT expenditures without sacrificing strong security.
  • Improved User Experience: SASE's integration with SD-WAN guarantees dependable and constant network performance for customers utilizing various clouds. This is especially important for companies that depend on bandwidth-intensive apps or have teams that are spread out globally. It offers enhanced user experience.

9. User and Device Authentication​

Rarely do businesses expand consistently. Rapid expansion can occasionally be the consequence of sales surges or strategy changes, and networking infrastructure might not be able to support the extra traffic or user communities.

SASE is the finest option for expanding digital businesses since it makes it possible to apply policies in an entirely uniform manner.

For example, growing businesses could cooperate with new contractors. SASE apps can then automate the onboarding process for new users. When onboarding third parties, robust user identity identification and tracking systems give comfort by closing security holes before they become issues.

Additionally, distributed PoPs help businesses grow internationally by preventing traffic jams. Furthermore, the availability of centralized admin panels greatly simplifies the process of switching cloud service providers.

ZTNA serves as the foundation for SASE, utilizing its capacity to swap out conventional hub-and-spoke infrastructures for a direct Internet access experience. Businesses want a solution that minimizes lateral movement while safeguarding sensitive information and the endpoint. ZTNA creates logical access limits around an application or group of apps, incorporates identification, and is context-based.

The ability to conceal the network from detection is a key component of the system, and access is limited to a specific group of identified organizations using a trusted broker. The broker removes the application assets from public view and drastically reduces the attack surface area by verifying the identity, context, and policy adherence of the designated participants before granting access and forbidding lateral movement elsewhere in the network.

Version 1.0 of ZTNA, which violated the principle of least-privileged access and exposed organizations to increased risk of a breach, only supported coarse-grained access controls and included an "allow and ignore" approach for both consumers and app traffic. This meant that all apps had either little or no advanced security, including basic data loss prevention (DLP). Solutions for ZTNA 1.0 only address a portion of the issues related to direct-to-app access. ZTNA Version 2.0 is an upgraded version of the original methodology that was created as ZTNA developed. ZTNA 2.0 is a progression of the first ZTNA methodology, incorporating the most recent features and functionalities, including comprehensive interaction with other security products, support for contemporary authentication methods, and sophisticated risk analysis capabilities.

Constant trust verification is one of ZTNA 2.0's main components. Once an app is allowed access, trust is continuously evaluated in response to modifications in device posture, user behavior, and app activity. In the event that any questionable activity is found, access might be immediately withdrawn.

What is SASE?​

A cloud-native architecture called Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) combines security features like FWaaS, CASB, SWG, and ZTNA with SD-WAN into a single service. Hence, Secure Access Service Edge is an architecture that offers cloud-native security features, including firewalls as a service, zero-trust network access, secure web gateways, and cloud access security brokers, together with convergent network and security as a service capabilities like SD-WAN. The SASE provider offers these features as a service, delivered from the cloud.

Instead of backhauling traffic to corporate data centers, this allows an enterprise to automatically accommodate scattered remote and hybrid customers by connecting them to local cloud gateways. In addition, it offers reliable, secure access to any application while preserving complete visibility and inspection of all traffic across all protocols and ports.

Managing network security using the conventional "castle and moat" method has grown more difficult and dangerous as enterprises move more and more data and apps to the cloud. SASE, in contrast to the conventional networking methodology, integrates networking and security into a single cloud platform and control plane, ensuring uniform visibility, controls, and user experiences across all applications.

In this sense, SASE enables enterprises to move away from several architectural layers and point solutions by establishing a new, unified corporate network based on cloud services delivered via the Internet.

Why Should You Prefer SASE?​

Companies have had to rethink their network and security infrastructures as a result of the move to remote labor. Due to their distinct business requirements, dispersed enterprises ought to favor SASE. If we were to go into great depth, the following would be the reasons this decision is required:

The first thing that springs to mind is enabling quick network connectivity for every user, wherever they are, on any device. In technical terms, organizations have a wide range of alternatives for connecting distant people to enterprise applications and the Internet because of the extensive network of cloud Points of Presence (POP) and the widespread availability of cloud apps and services.

Previous methods of backhauling branch offices and remote user connections to corporate office security stacks and, subsequently, to the cloud generated significant latency and resulted in a poor user experience. With the advent of software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), enterprises now select the best network channel for each application to maximize user and remote site connections to cloud or on-premises resources. This might be a broadband or wireless connection to the Internet via a local Internet breakout on the SD-WAN device, or it could be a virtual private network (VPN) or multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) link back to a corporate network.

Although SD-WAN is the best option for branch office connectivity, a lot of users work from home, and in these cases, they usually don't have an SD-WAN device that belongs to the organization. Providing support for BYOD devices was one of the biggest issues with remote work. Top administrative challenges include growing performance, privacy, and compliance, as well as BYOD. First adopters utilize zero trust network access (ZTNA) concepts to securely link distant users and offices to the Internet and to business applications in the Zero Trust Edge (ZTE) paradigm, also known as the SASE model. If ZTNA is offered as a cloud service, performance is increased, of course, by bringing the security stack closer to the user and application.

A clientless ZTNA solution both increases efficiency and solves the BYOD problem.

By accessing business applications from a browser using multi-factor authentication (MFA), you can definitively verify the user's identity.

Another method for connecting distant users is over a VPN, yet one of the most common complaints from consumers was VPN-related. Another problem with VPNs is that they provide an authorized user with complete access to the network, increasing the attack surface and exposing the business to online dangers. When used in conjunction with an SD-WAN or SASE solution, ZTNA gives the ability to integrate zero trust into a remote access solution, restricting remote workers' network access to just what they truly need for their activities.

Second, since the transition to remote work, almost half of IT and security experts say they have seen an increase in cyberattacks. The three main issues were account takeover, phishing, and data loss. Experts in enterprise IT security are conversant with cutting-edge on-premises security solutions, such as next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) and secure web gateways (SWGs), which have sandboxing features to protect against zero-day and phishing attacks. It may be argued that prevention is even more important for remote workforce security than for on-premises personnel security.

Think about a security measure that identifies an attack but does nothing to stop it. If a user is on-site, the company probably has a segmented network that allows it to swiftly isolate the compromised host, which could be close to the help desk. Although access from the compromised host can be restricted when a worker works remotely, it takes significantly longer to clean up the compromised server and restore the worker's online presence. One important advantage of a secure SASE system is that distant in-office workers may benefit from the same degree of threat avoidance.

The new perimeter in the zero-trust security concept is data. Since COVID-19 forced a transition to remote work, two of the most common breach and attack routes have been data exfiltration and leakage. We covered how ZTNA offers scalable, secure network connectivity to corporate applications in the section above. Having a security strategy that integrates ZTNA with safe online browsing, sophisticated threat protection, and data loss prevention in a single web console that is cloud-managed is equally crucial.

Which Sectors Use SASE Most?​

SASE changes the focus of security from traffic-flow-centric to identity-centric by combining networking and security capabilities into a single-service cloud-native architecture. SASE is a set of technologies that incorporate security into the global network architecture so that it is always available, regardless of the user's location, the location of the application or resource they are seeking to access, or the combination of transport technologies that connect them.

Converging network and security functions affect budgeting, buying decisions, and technology adoption strategies from an organizational, structural, and cultural perspective.

Large businesses and governmental institutions are particularly affected since they are often less flexible and more tightly structured than smaller businesses.

However, convergent networking and security, the two main reasons behind SASE adoption, apply to all companies equally, although they are particularly crucial to the financial, healthcare, and government sectors.

The following sectors use SASE:

  • Startups: A wide range of global cloud providers offer computation and storage resources that are readily and affordably available on a pay-as-you-go and expand basis. In urban regions, cellular and broadband network connections are widely available and reasonably priced. Simultaneously, hackers are using the same work-from-anywhere (WFA) and cloud technology expediencies to become more skilled and prolific than before. Because of this, it is essential for any firm with less than 10 employees to be aware of its security vulnerability and to take precautions to safeguard its operations. Thankfully, the entry hurdle for SASE is also low, and even the tiniest enterprises may be affordably protected by a pure cloud-delivered solution with per-user billing.
  • The Small and Medium-Sized Business (SMB): SMBs are the most frugal of all businesses; they don't have the resources to support sizable IT departments or to keep stacks of single-purpose boxes stacked high at each location. For the most part, Direct Internet Access (DIA) has saved money. The adoption of personal computers, tablets, and phones by employees has significantly reduced the cost of these devices. Another approach is to use cloud apps. SaaS pay-as-you-go rapidly scales up or down, eliminating the need for servers, OS upgrades, boxes, and more boxes, as well as poor performance. There was a hidden cost to all this financial ease: security. The attack surface of the company is greatly increased by DIA, BYOD, and cloud access. Never before have hackers had it so nice. The solution to this problem is SASE technology, which secures people and assets and lets you take advantage of cost reductions. SMEs may quickly add the services they want using cloud-delivered SASE; no boxes need to be bought, configured, deployed, or managed. Devices that are not maintained by the user are immediately protected for corporate usage. Low-cost enablers include per-user pricing and cloud-delivered SASE capabilities.
  • The Big Business: The COVID-19 pandemic's almost overnight precipitation of the dispersed worker model was a wake-up call for many big organizations, forcing them into an uncomfortably foreign manner of operation. For the majority of WFA operations, traditional WAN architectures that had tightly restricted VPN aggregation capacity for a tiny proportion of distant workers turned out to be completely insufficient. SASE provides transport medium independence and identity-based security for entities and sessions. Security is added to both the application sources (cloud) and the application consumption locations (workers' unmanaged devices) using Secure SD-WAN with SASE. SASE technologies enable multi-cloud applications and resources distributed regionally or globally, 100% WFA models, DIA, BYOD, and scalable secure access. With traditional WANs and security, these shifts make it nearly impossible to keep up with maintaining security, control, visibility, and performance.
  • The Government Agency: Like big businesses, governments are working to modernize in response to the substantial changes in their operational environment.
    • Shifting user expectations: the ways in which citizens and users anticipate receiving services and information.
    • Modifying models of service delivery: upgrading security and networks, and moving toward multi-cloud.
    • Growing risks and eavesdropping via cyberspace: the current state of affairs, which is characterized by a threat landscape that is becoming more complex and by a sharp increase in government cyber defense efforts. Adopting SASE technology addresses and mitigates all of the traditional barriers to government IT transformation.
    • The resellers: The resellers have the widest view of what is actually going on in the market, encompassing a variety of sectors, client sizes, and company characteristics. Numerous reputable resellers have a solid track record of confidently implementing reliable solutions. However, because of its historical difficulty, a lot of resellers have been reluctant to include security in their portfolios. Offering strong, integrated, convergent network and security portfolios is made possible by the flexibility of SASE technology, which may be offered via cloud, appliance, or a mix of these: fixed, user, bandwidth, or appliance-based pricing. Because of this, resellers may now effectively respond to requests for proposals (RFPs) that need a combination of networking, applications, user enablement, and security in order to be bid on.

For What Purposes Can the Healthcare Sector Adopt SASE?​

SASE can help you update health care security. To keep things stable in the long term, we need a modern security architecture that can balance and manage risk, give us a better understanding of how health systems' new digital footprints change over time, and let us find and act on risk in real time. Notably, if these capabilities are chosen and implemented without a well-thought-out plan and defined integration architecture, there is the possibility of needless risk exposure. The danger environment, which will exploit and profit from flaws in health system design, technology, and operations, will accelerate along with the rate of digital transformation, which makes this situation worse. Fortunately, a secure access service edge (SASE) security architectural approach can offer a scalable solution to these problems.

Because health-care environments are constantly dynamic, measuring and controlling the risk profile of devices that handle highly sensitive data is difficult. The risk posture of health care practitioners, patients, devices, and the apps with which they interact is always changing. To manage risk, health care companies must first understand their digital footprint, as well as the interactions and operations of apps, services, and users. Pervasive visibility and monitoring of these transactions enable the identification of potential vulnerabilities and attack vectors that might be exploited. Securing health-care systems is a high-risk effort; health-care data is extremely valuable, sometimes holding a large amount of personally identifiable information (PII). This is significant because, unlike banking and financial information, which can be changed or recreated, most of an individual's personal health information is unchangeable. Furthermore, ransomware attacks endanger not just the health system but also the well-being and privacy of any affected individual if health records are compromised as part of a data breach.

When your healthcare staff requires access to important apps, they may not always be on-site. This might include administrative personnel at a home office or registered nurses making home visits to patients. SASE enables remote access while strengthening security throughout your whole system. Remote clinical workers require the same level of access to patient data in electronic health record systems as those operating within the four walls of a hospital. When used in conjunction with SASE, CASB monitors the activity and performance of business applications and prioritizes bandwidth for mission-critical applications. This has the extra benefit of boosting the number of calls a network can manage to a server farm or data center." And, because of the underlying Zero Trust architecture in which SASE functions, this access is exactly as secure as it would be if it were within the hospital walls.

How Can Branch Offices Be Better Connected Using SASE?​

The migration of applications to the cloud, as well as increasing user mobility, are altering the way networking and network security services must be supplied.

As cloud usage grows around the globe, at both large and small businesses, it is critical to ensure that your cloud plan includes performance, connection, and, all too frequently overlooked, security for your branch offices and retail locations.

Secure Access Service Edge is a comprehensive solution that enables enterprises to adopt cloud and mobility by delivering network and network security services from a unified cloud platform.

Traditionally, corporations had three alternatives for securing and connecting their branch offices to the Internet:

  1. Use branch routers at each site to backhaul traffic to HQ for inspection and policy enforcement over an MPLS connection. This method is both expensive and inefficient.
  2. As an alternative to MPLS, use a VPN over a normal internet connection to connect branch offices to the headquarters.
  3. Use direct-to-internet at the branch, with a network security stack at each site, to provide the same level of protection as a centralized perimeter firewall.

These solutions made sense when corporations only used apps in internal data centers and when the applications were not very bandwidth-intensive. These alternatives were regarded as best practices for developing wide-area networks for many years until the cloud began to push new requirements. It makes less sense to employ traditional branch networking to transfer traffic back to headquarters in light of the cloud migration. Furthermore, when more cloud services are employed at the branch, bandwidth and performance difficulties occur. Video conferencing, streaming, and cloud storage services all consume a significant amount of bandwidth. As a result, businesses are seeking methods to incorporate a direct-to-internet connection at the branch without adding additional security issues. Branch offices require access to programs located in headquarters data centers, as well as the internet, SaaS apps, and public cloud services. For successful branch security, companies must design their network architecture in such a manner that access to all resources, independent of location, is optimized. A SASE security strategy offers branch offices security and visibility into all traffic, as well as seamless access to assets in the cloud and on-premises. Organizations may benefit from an improved user experience with fast and dependable internet connections and correct localization by moving their network and network security services to a SASE solution, while maximizing a company's ability to grow rapidly and simply by adding offices. Organizations must evaluate the security of the applications that are being accessed by examining apps not just across web protocols but also across ports. With a SASE cloud-based security approach, enterprises have complete visibility and inspection of traffic across ports and protocols, allowing policies to be applied to all cloud traffic. Furthermore, by leveraging the cloud, enterprises may eliminate MPLS, resulting in considerable cost savings.

How Can Educational Institutions Use SASE?​

Virtual education is most certainly here to stay. And, as ransomware and other malicious assaults become more common, SASE provides a rapid solution to defend these setups. Secure access service edge solutions integrate critical VPN and CASB functionality into a single, unified, cloud-based platform. Instead of going the long path, granular traffic control capabilities enable schools to route encrypted traffic to local access points, commonly known as the "service edge." Having total insight into security solutions and network traffic allows you to enforce current cloud policies and build new ones as needed. Educational institutions no longer have only one line of defense to avoid attacks by having a complete view of the traffic across their network and different security technologies that operate together.

As the number of cyber threats and assaults on colleges and universities grows each year, so does the need to safeguard college and university IT systems, because the abundance of personal data held by students, parents, teachers, and staff makes them an appealing target. Furthermore, many schools and universities do considerable research with significant technical or national security ramifications. Threats arise from a variety of sources, including ransomware gangs, nation-state strikes, angry insiders, and even negligent academics, staff, or students.

Traditional security measures, particularly for legacy access technologies such as virtual private networks (VPN), were not designed for current use patterns in which the whole campus community may access the network from a variety of places and devices. Modernizing the network necessitates novel methodologies and technological frameworks, such as Secure Access Services Edge (SASE).

By combining several operations into a single cloud-based service, SASE may assist colleges in lowering the cost and complexity of maintaining their networks and security infrastructure. This can assist universities in better financial management and focusing on their main goals of teaching, learning, service, and research.

Furthermore, the technology-enabled learning environment is spawning a new school of thought that will assist educational institutions in expanding beyond the confines of traditional classroom and campus contexts.

Cloud-hosted learning and assessment platforms, collaboration tools, smart pods, interactive displays, and immersive audio systems are all required for remote learning.

Current technological needs favor smart devices' simplicity, speed, and convenience over physical textbooks and learning tools. Current staff and student requirements are being driven by the speed and performance of collaborative technologies.

With the development of campuses, universities must not only provide rapid connections to all places but also safeguard the data that is present. It is significantly more vital to safeguard data between departments and sites when using remote learning.

Last updated on by Zenarmor