SSE, as defined by Gartner, is an evolving stack of different cloud-based security tools including:
These tools are one half of a SASE architecture, which is the convergence of networking and security tools within a cloud infrastructure.
But let’s zoom out a little bit and understand what needs to happen with SSE security beyond the discussion of core technology requirements. We love our acronyms in tech, and we see the eyes roll and hear the sighs when we meet with customers and partners and are asked to describe Netskope’s position regarding yet another acronym—SSE—and its relevance to the bigger stories around SASE and Zero Trust. We like to steer this SSE conversation into a useful discussion of what SSE services will allow us to do, when properly implemented.
Blog: Understanding Security Service Edge and SASE
The early era of cybersecurity relied on firewalls, on-premises web proxies, sandboxing, SIEMs, and endpoint security, all of which aren’t equipped for a cloud-dominated space. These days more and more data is moving outside the network perimeter, beyond the reach of firewalls which aren’t equipped to read cloud traffic anyway. Couple this with the growing number of endpoints connecting to enterprise networks are BYOD. In totality, you have a recipe for extremely unreliable oversight of company data.
For example, safe usage of generative AI, such as the wildly popular ChatGPT app, requires an application connector to enable real-time user coaching, data protection of what is uploaded, and application activity controls.
If we usefully organize how the SSE platform solves what security must do in this newer world of keeping data safe in the cloud, several principles guide our discussion.
SSE Component #1: Security must track data from various sources
We now have lots of traffic that a traditional web proxy or firewall can’t understand, and can’t really even see. We have users who are now everywhere, apps that are in multiple clouds, and data being accessed from anywhere. Given this, you have to have a security inspection point that follows data everywhere it goes. And if that inspection point non-negotiably needs to follow the data, that means the inspection point needs to be in the cloud so that its benefits can be delivered to users and delivered to the apps.
SSE Component #2: Security must be able to decode and analyze cloud traffic
Decoding cloud traffic means security must be able to see and interpret API JSON traffic, which web proxies and firewalls can’t do.
SSE Component #3: Security must provide adaptive data access
We must go beyond merely controlling who has access to information and move toward continuous, real-time access and policy controls that adapt on an ongoing basis based on a number of factors, including the users themselves, the devices they’re operating, the apps they’re accessing, activity, app instance (company vs personal), data sensitivity, environmental signals like geo-location and time of day, and the threats that are present. All of this is part of understanding, in real-time, the context with which they’re attempting to access data.
SSE Component #4: Security can’t slow down the network
The user needs to get their data fast, and the network has to be reliable. If security is slowing down access or operability, productivity suffers, and teams dangerously begin trading off security controls for network speed and reliability. One might think that this is as simple as moving the security controls to the cloud. It’s not as simple as that. Ultimately the cloud ends up traversing a dirty place—called the internet— that can cause a whole slew of issues in routing and exposure. This is where private networks come into play so that we can ensure a smooth and efficient path from the end user to their destination, and back again.
Learn More: What is a CASB?
Because of all these needs, your traditional perimeter has disappeared, and you have to move your inspection point. An SSE architecture provides that inspection point—or rather, many distributed inspection points that get as close as possible to where and how data is accessed, whether it’s in the cloud or a private application.
This has profound implications for how you design security and infrastructure, and why we now need SSE and SASE to help us get organized. Think of it this way: if 90 percent of your security spend is for on-premises-focused security, but 50 percent of your apps and 90 percent of your users are off-premises, your security is already being stretched like a rubber band. You’re trying to pull security from the on-premises model into all of these other things it wasn’t designed for, creating tension for the business and leading to an eventual snap of that rubber band, breaking your security. That won’t work.
You will also notice, in the four principles listed above, that the last principle references the network. Too often, we’ve historically had network conversations to address security problems, and that was because we often assumed that our data was on our network and that network was safe. But now, our data is not on our network, and our users are not on our network. This doesn’t obviate the need for network security or marginalize the importance of things like access control. It just means that some of the lines are blurring and we need to account for that.
With Netskope SSE cyber security, your internet inspection points are in place, you’re consolidating your cloud and web and data inspection capabilities, and, crucially, all of those inspection capabilities are firing off atomically—all at the same time, not sequentially or one at a time. If you want to learn more about Netskope’s SSE security capabilities and how they work into a SASE architecture, check out our rundown of the Netskope Security Cloud. You can learn all about Netskope SSE, as well as the individual SSE components that make up the security half of the Secure Access Service Edge.
Solution brief: Netskope Security Service Edge (SSE)
Blog: Netskope Real-time Threat Protection and AV-TEST Results
eBook: Designing a SASE Architecture for Dummies
Single-Vendor SASE delivers multiple converged-network and security-as-a-service capabilities, combining software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) with Security Service Edge (SSE) components such as secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), network firewalling and zero trust network access (ZTNA). These offerings use a cloud-centric architecture and are delivered by one vendor.
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