With employees accessing applications and data through hybrid work environments, organizations need a way to secure remote workers. Secure service edges can help with this.

SSE is a cloud native architecture that combines networking and security services into a single platform. It provides continuous security across SaaS, cloud and private applications using a unified policy framework.

Access Control

Secure Service Edge (SSE) solutions are essential as more employees, partners, and customers access content, data and applications via the internet and mobile devices. SSE provides protection against malicious or unauthorized access. SSE also allows secure access to cloud, web and private applications.

SSE is a platform that integrates network and security functions. It includes SD-WAN, firewalls as a service (FaaS), secure web gateways, cloud access security brokers (CASB), zero trust network accesses (ZTNA), etc. It allows for consistent application and network security across users and locations, while also providing central visibility.

SSE is also equipped with a zero-trust access control system based on identity. This means that users are never put on the network. This provides fast and reliable WAN connection without the requirement for a VPN. SSE also includes a defense-in depth strategy that is effective in detecting and preventing threats such as malware.

Threat Protection

SSE offers threat protection for internet sessions, ensuring that users connect securely to critical business applications no matter where they are located. This enables hybrid-work for employees, secures data and cloud connectivity, accelerates migrations to the cloud, and simplifies M&A integration.

The cloud platform can deliver security services to users regardless of their location or device. It reduces risk because it eliminates gaps in point products, and also removes the need to update legacy appliances manually.

Zero trust: SSE Systems should provide least-privileged access in accordance with a zero-trust policy. This includes user role and behavior as well as device, application, or content. This reduces the attack surface by preventing lateral movement, protecting applications from discovery and preventing lateral movements.

SSE enforces corporate policies for all users regardless of their location in the network, or device they use. This helps reduce the risk that insiders, ransomwares and other types of threats can be posed by employees who connect to sensitive information or use cloud-based applications that aren't compliant with corporate security policies.

Data Security

The information of remote and portable users is important to organizations. Secure service edges delivers security through the unification of web gateways (SWG), cloud-access security brokers (CASB), as well as zero-trust network access (ZTNA).

SSE provides centralized cloud data protection (DLP), allowing sensitive data be quickly found, classified, then secured in an unified manner. This can be used to support compliance policies like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard(PCI DSS), and GDPR.

SSE solutions should also include advanced threat prevention features, including cloud firewalls as a service, CASB inspections of data within SaaS apps and adaptive access controls. SSE solutions must include adaptive access control, which identifies and adjusts access based on changes in device posture.

Monitoring

It's crucial to monitor internet sessions when working with a service edge. This will allow you to monitor how your network is working and which applications are being used.

Monitoring can help to protect your business by spotting potential problems in advance and preventing them from happening. This can help improve your user's experience and reduce cost.

SSE platforms capable of inspecting web and data trafic on a large scale are critical. You should choose a vendor who has solid service-level agreements and is experienced in evaluating the traffic of major multinationals.

A security service edge can be used to enforce policy control on internet, cloud and mobile access. This includes enforcing internet and access control policy for corporate compliance or mitigating risks through content blocking and malicious isolation.