For years, CISOs have relied on a defense-in-depth strategy built with layers of security to protect the physical perimeter, the endpoint, the applications, and the data that flows between them. While a best practice in its day, this approach has left many organizations in a state of entrenched "product sprawl," coping with a patchwork of disparate tools and consoles, each designed to do its job but not necessarily to work well together. The inherent shortcomings in this legacy architectural approach are being exposed at a moment when the volume of data flowing through enterprise environments is exploding and the number of hybrid and remote users has surged, leading to visibility gaps, alert overload, slow response times, conflicting policies, rising costs, and reduced security effectiveness.
Fundamentally, the attack surface has changed beyond recognition, and it's clear that traditional approaches cannot address the increased complexity of modern networks. The concepts behind Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) represent a needed paradigm shift in how we think about security architecture by converging security and networking into a single, integrated, cloud-delivered platform that vastly simplifies how we connect and manage on-premises and remote entities.
In recognition of the just-concluded Cybersecurity Awareness Month, let's look at the top five ways SASE transforms enterprise security:
1. Security and networking convergence
In legacy architectures, networking and security are built and operated separately. Security solutions such as NGFWs, SWGs, VPNs, CASBs, etc., sit apart from networking components like routers, SD-WAN controllers, and WAN optimizers. Each tool has its own policy engine and controls its own data flow, making it complex to stitch them together to work in concert.
Advanced SASE solutions eliminate this divide by unifying these functions, not just yoking them together. Instead of hop-by-hop inspection service-chained across multiple appliances, security is applied natively within the traffic flow, providing seamless network and policy enforcement that streamlines operations, reduces latency, and closes gaps.
2. Single-pane-of-glass visibility
With traditional tools, security teams must pivot from one interface to another, trying to manually identify indicators of compromise with delayed or contradictory data.
In contrast, SASE gives networking and security teams a unified control plane. They gain full visibility into users, devices, applications, and threats across the entire infrastructure – from branch to cloud to remote endpoints. As a result, log correlation becomes faster, enriching data and allowing responses in real time.
3. Modernized defense-in-depth
Defense-in-depth isn't dead as a concept, it's just evolved. SASE provides all the core pillars of layered security (NGFW, intrusion prevention, DLP, ZTNA, CASB, SWG, etc.), but as coordinated capabilities in a single architecture. Policies apply equally everywhere, unlike with legacy tools, where policies may apply only in certain locations, leading to inconsistent enforcement in a hybrid world where users are constantly moving between corporate networks and connecting from anywhere.
The value of delivering defense-in-depth capabilities within a single architecture can be found in cohesive, layered protection without the operational burden of stitching together multiple point solutions, thus providing inline control for real-time defense. This enables immediate, coordinated action, and allows security functions such as ZTNA, NGFW, SWG, IPS, and threat intelligence to share context and enforce unified policies. This approach reduces gaps, eliminates redundancy, and simplifies management to strengthen security posture while improving performance and efficiency.
4. Zero Trust built in
The Zero Trust philosophy of "never trust, always verify" is critical in today's evolving threat landscape. Yet many organizations limit Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to remote users, while sticking with traditional perimeter security and network access control solutions for in-office authentication. This creates uneven security coverage and leaves gaps where implicit trust is persistent after initial access. Advanced SASE solutions embed Zero Trust principles across all entities regardless of their location. A device's posture is continuously evaluated, least-privilege access is dynamically enforced, and identity-aware security policies allow for microsegmentation to restrict lateral movement. All policies are centrally managed and auditable to ensure consistent, adaptive protection everywhere.
5. AI made effective
Advanced SASE platforms also lay the foundation for AI-driven security by providing enriched data for all entities that can be parsed and correlated via a single system, enhancing the Zero Trust model by eliminating blind spots and enabling deeper, more accurate analysis for faster remediation. AI poses a problem for traditional solutions, which use their own built-in AI and therefore know how to enrich only their own data. When it comes to working with other solutions' enriched data, a third-party solution such as a SIEM is needed that can take this data, parse and correlate it as needed, and display it in a way that showcases indicators of compromise and real and potential threats.
Security leaders find themselves with an incredible challenge. The threat landscape is evolving faster than ever, and legacy tools are failing to keep up. The pressure to consolidate, simplify, and modernize has never been greater. SASE offers a way forward with a new architecture that's faster and smarter and meets the reality of how businesses operate today.
