Why it’s time to bring network security to the user
Discover how FortiSASE delivers a unified, cloud-first security approach designed to protect users, devices, and SaaS applications wherever work happens.
Discover why traditional network security is no longer fit for hybrid work and how cloud-delivered SASE brings consistent protection, visibility, and secure access directly to users—wherever they work.
The way we connect, communicate, and collaborate continues to evolve, with hybrid working now firmly established across the public and private sectors, and SaaS adoption increasing, as our understanding of these new workflows improves. At the time of writing, it is anticipated that 90% of organisations will rely primarily on SaaS platforms by 2030 – a completely new model of enterprise infrastructure that will free employees of their traditional ties to specific locations and devices.
However, as with any period of intensive digital transformation, potential security vulnerabilities must be given careful consideration. Indeed, 66% of organisations already cite the security of SaaS platforms as their biggest challenge – concerns compounded by a number of recent high-profile incidents where bad actors have utilised security vulnerabilities in SaaS platforms (some caused by misconfiguration, others by simple human error) to gain access to corporations’ critical data.
Traditional security ecosystems are typically based on building security around the network and were never designed to accommodate secure remote access at scale. As a result, with many organisations forced to rapidly pivot to hybrid working throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns, security has often become fragmented across multiple users, devices, and locations. Not only does this represent a significant increase in operational overheads, maintaining numerous heavily siloed platforms make the consistent application of corporate security policies and visibility of user devices extremely complex and time-consuming to maintain. As a result, it is far too easy for security vulnerabilities to go undetected until a breach occurs, particularly when we consider the risk of ‘shadow IT’, where employees are using Cloud and SaaS platforms that have not been validated by corporate security teams as part of their day-to-day work.
While it may be possible to implement security solutions on a case-by-case basis, i.e. the use of VPNs, this will not, ultimately, be sustainable. Not only will it exacerbate the concerns highlighted above, it will also introduce additional latency and complexity that is unacceptable at a time when employees expect critical platforms to always be available and always offer the highest standards of performance.
Taking all these concerns into account, it is clear that we need to rethink the way we design, implement, and manage network security, ensuring policies are applied consistently and correctly for all users and all devices, wherever they are connecting from. Rather than deploying multiple security solutions across a pre-existing network infrastructure, a unified model of network security is required – one that can accommodate the diverse nature of SaaS platforms and the dynamic nature of modern workflows.
FortiSASE offers a single, fully centralised answer to these concerns. A Cloud-based Security Service Edge (SSE) solution, built on Fortinet’s best-in-class security platform and delivered as a fully managed service by Exponential-e, FortiSASE intelligently automates that application of corporate security policies across users, devices, and locations, without the complexity of traditional network controls. This way, full control and visibility of all network traffic can be maintained, without compromising the performance and availability of approved SaaS applications.
If you are in any way frustrated by the performance of your critical applications or concerned about the security of your network, get in touch, and our specialists will work closely with you to phase out your legacy systems in favour of next-gen solutions that fully support your specific workflows.
