As organizations grapple with accelerating growth with the use of cloud services, more data, users, devices, applications, and services are used outside of traditional enterprise facilities. This means that the institutional environment is no longer a location.
Users have to return to the corporate network wherever they are, still often using expensive and inefficient technologies, only to return to the outside world again and again. This creates significant challenges in terms of service availability, user performance, and productivity.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is a security framework that envisions the convergence of security and networking technologies into a single cloud-based platform to enable secure and fast cloud transformation. According to recent global research, 19% of respondents intend to adopt a secure access service edge (SASE) over the next year.
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What is Cloud SASE Service?
SASE is a new approach that reimagines networking and security technologies as unified cloud services. It offers uniform connectivity and protection features everywhere so that people can work from anywhere. Cloud SASE service goes beyond providing secure access to the web, cloud, and private applications.
Secure Access Service Endpoints (SASE) aim to replace traditional hub-and-spoke architectures with secure Direct Internet Access. Combining cloud-based security, zero-trust access, and comprehensive WAN features, it delivers a secure and consistent working experience regardless of employee location or application hosting.
Cloud SASE services are implemented based on the user’s identity and real-time content. NordLayer as a SASE provider offers the best and most effective of all Cloud SASE Services which is the best way to secure your network and system.
What are the basic services in the cloud SASE Service architecture?
Secure Web Gateway (SWG)
are corporate security solutions aimed at protecting users from web-based cyber threats. The benefits are:
- URL Filtering – Allows or blocks website access by comparing requested URLs with a database that is defined and filtered based on business policies.
- Malware Protection – Examines encrypted and unencrypted web content to identify and block all threats.
- Application control – Provides visibility into accessed applications and allows granular control to ensure security and compliance.
SWGs are often implemented as an in-network cloud service organized as multi-partner security stacks via globally distributed PoP points. Traffic from corporate users (remote and branch office) is forwarded to the SWG cloud, where it is inspected and secured.
Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)
helps monitor, secure, and manage access to approved and unapproved Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. CASB has these four benefits:
- Visibility – Unified view of all applications used by enterprise users, including unapproved shadow IT applications.
- Data security – Reducing unauthorized access and data theft of sensitive data.
- Threat Protection – Leverage in-network proxy architectures, native or integrated threat feeds, and behavioral analytics to identify and limit damage from malware and compromised users.
- Compliance – Viewing and reporting that industry regulations and data residency policies are met.
Zero-Trust Network Access (ZTNA)
aims to eliminate “over-trust” by providing “just in time” and “adequate” access between authorized users and prohibited applications. Unlike traditional VPN solutions that allow a user with a specific IP address to access the entire corporate network, ZTNA allows for sensitive, adaptive, identity, and context-sensitive access. Key features of ZTNA solutions are:
- Identity Sensitive – Access is granted based on user ID. ZTNA solutions often integrate with Identity Providers such as Microsoft Azure Active Directory for Credentials.
- Context-Aware – ZTNA solutions take into account concurrent context parameters such as user’s identity, location, device from which access is requested, time of day, the sensitivity of the particular application requested, simultaneous risk calculation, based on input from security and monitoring services. Access levels can be adapted and access granted/limited/denied as these parameters change.
- Application Level Access – to authorized users access is granted only to a specific application and not to the underlying network. This limits the possibility of malware spreading within the corporate network.
- Applications Stay Private from the Internet – Data transfer between the user and the application is supported by an “intermediary” within the ZTNA architecture, without the need to provide the application’s IP address to the Internet. As a result, application DDoS and hidden from bad users who might want to do similar attacks.
Firewall as a Service acts as a gateway controller or filter between the corporate network and the Internet by offering bidirectional (in and out) controls to allow only secure traffic to pass. Firewalls generally offer features such as Intrusion Detection/Prevention, Anti-Malware, Logging, and Reporting. Additionally, most modern firewalls offer Sandboxing, Geolocation, and Signatureless (anomaly-based) Threat Detection. A few of them are described as:
- Malware Protection – Inspects encrypted and unencrypted web content to identify and block all threats.
- Intrusion Prevention/Detection System(IPS/IDS) – Examines traffic and compares it with known threat signatures to identify malicious files. IDS is a monitoring and logging tool that generates an alert when malware is detected. IPS takes this a step further and automatically blocks potential malicious traffic.
- Unsigned/Anomaly-Based Threat Detection – Anomaly-based detection, code in file examines the file behavior or compares the possible file behavior with typical lines. For example, if a newly-downloaded file is trying to disable security checks, it will be restricted.
- Protected Network (SANDBOX) – Suspicious files are sent to the protected network to be run in an isolated environment. If the files are malicious, the information in the files is blocked and sent to the firewall.
- Geolocation – Distribution of a specific IP address range to a specific geography and allowing, limiting, or blocking access based on that distribution
Conclusion
NordLayer combines all Cloud SASE services with advanced integrations, automation, and monolithic management across network and security. Cloud SASE service allows your company to be better positioned to take advantage of new technologies such as edge computing, 5G, and mobile artificial intelligence.
