SSE vs SASE: What is the difference?

SASE or SSE: Understanding the difference

When it comes to network security, there are two options you can choose from; SASE or SSE. Let’s compare them, see what they are and why you should integrate them with your business.

What is SASE?

Gartner created Secure Access Service Edge in 2019 to combine networking and security capabilities as a unified cloud-native service. SASE allowed businesses to maintain a remote workspace and protect their cloud from threats from exposing the network to unsecured Internet. A SASE solution consists of two pillars:

1. Networking - Focuses on resilience and access optimization.
2. Security - Enforces granular security policies on all users.

What is SSE?

Two years after the introduction of SASE, Gartner introduced a new category for small businesses that wanted security without enhanced networking capabilities. SSE offers a holistic approach toward secure and optimized access by addressing user experience issues and protecting traffic from attacks, threats, and chances of data loss. An SSE solution consists of the following core capabilities:

1. Secure Web Gateway to secure internet access.
2. Cloud Access Security Broker to secure access to SaaS and cloud applications.
3. Zero Trust Network Access to secure access to private applications.

Is it important to integrate a network security solution?

Protecting sensitive data is essential for your success. You will ensure data security and integrity by eliminating the chances of a cyberattack. Therefore, it’s essential to integrate a network security solution like SASE or SSE with your cloud deployment to protect your business because:

• Legacy technologies were designed for data centers and cannot build secure connections between users and cloud applications.
• Traditional VPNs slowly rerouted traffic to the data center during an inspection.
• Traditional data center approaches require expensive maintenance.
• Hackers can easily exploit VPNs.

Why should small businesses consider SSE?

Small businesses benefit from SSE better than SASE, as they do not require improved networking capabilities due to fewer employees. If you want to deploy a unified cloud-native platform for your remote employees, SSE can assist you in breaking free from the challenges of traditional network security while providing three advantages:

1. Reducing risks SSE provides unified cybersecurity services to create a cloud platform that tracks user-to-app connections apart from being a part of the network. Therefore, it can eliminate the gaps between endpoints and reduce associated risks. You can also use SSE to improve your visibility across users and data at every location, regardless of the services used by different employees. Additionally, SSE can automatically enforce security updates across your cloud infrastructure while ensuring zero downtime or need for manual IT administration.
2. Implementing Zero Trust SSE platforms can grant least-privileged access by leveraging a Zero Trust policy, where access is authenticated by considering numerous factors like users, devices, applications, and content. Remember, you should never use your network to connect with users as you will expose it to other users. Instead, you should use the internet to create a secure connection between users and applications to improve your network security. However, SSE platforms prohibit lateral movement of threats, protect your application’s exposure over the internet, ensure they are not discovered, and reduce the attack surface.
3. Improving user experience An SSE architecture distributes itself across data centers instead of being hosted in an IaaS. It is purpose-built for inspection in every infrastructure by performing decrypting and TLS/SSL inspection to improve the network’s performance and reduce latency. You can combine an SSE platform with peering to provide the best experience to mobile users, avoid VPNs, and offer seamless access to your cloud applications.

Use cases

Search Initiative always comes first if you want your site to be in perfect order. Here are some popular SSE use cases that can further improve your understanding:

• Securing access to cloud services You can control user access to the internet and cloud applications through SSE by deploying policies to mitigate the risks as end-users access internal and external networks. You can enforce corporate internet and access control policies to improve compliance. Cloud Security Posture Management is another key capability of SSE that protects your business from misconfigurations that lead to security breaches.
• Detecting and mitigating cyber threats SSE can detect threats and prevent attacks across your network or cloud services. Since your users need to access cloud applications and corporate data from anywhere, you must deploy stringent security policies to combat malware or phishing attempts. CASB allows small businesses to inspect data within SaaS apps to identify and quarantine malware before it can compromise the network. You can also leverage adaptive access controls to determine the security posture of your end user and automatically adjust the access.
• Identifying and protecting sensitive information You can combine key data protection technologies to find and control sensitive data stored on your network. SSE uses cloud DLP policies to find, classify, and secure data to meet industry standards and regulatory requirements. You can use SSE to simplify how your business protects data; you will create DLP policies only once, and the SSE will use CASB to apply them to your network’s traffic and cloud applications.

Conclusion

SASE and SSE are two network security solutions that can help businesses improve their ability to combat cyber threats. If you want to protect your small business, you can deploy an SSE solution to improve your network security without worrying about building a Software Defined Wide Area Network. The security capabilities of SSE provide holistic insights and granular control over a remote workspace.