Key Takeaway
How we work and communicate has evolved and the need for cybersecurity has never been stronger. SASE offers a modern solution to battling cybercriminals in new and effective ways.
March 12, 2025 · Chris Alberding · 6 min
Being hit by a cyberattack is a universal fear among organizations. Here are the different kinds of threats to look out for, and one cybersecurity solution that is heroically taking them all on.
Charlotte skims through her email after connecting to a coffee shop’s WiFi on her way to the office. At the same time, David opens his laptop in his home office and remotely logs in to a video conference. Similarly, Ted settles into his morning routine at his office branch, checking through the network security notifications that were flagged to his IT department overnight.
Clearly, the ways we work and communicate look a whole lot, depending on one’s industry and organization. Shifts toward mobility and cloud adoption are requiring organizations to reconsider how to better connect and secure their offices, users and resources. An IDC study found that 92% of enterprise businesses’ IT environment—including their infrastructure, applications and data analytics—relies on the cloud. This number is aligned with the growing acceptance and expectation of remote and hybrid work environments across U.S. executive leadership, according to Harvard Business Review.
While workplace flexibility provides new opportunities for organizations and their employees, it also presents heightened security risks with remote workers logging on from home on a mixed bag of personal and company devices. We are constantly hearing about the endless cycle of cyberthreats, ransomware attacks and data breaches wreaking havoc on every type of organization imaginable. But a glimmer of hope exists with a new blend of solutions—a layered, interwoven fabric of network and security technologies called Secure Access Service Edge—SASE, for short.
SASE is a powerful recent development that incorporates SD-WAN with a comprehensive network security model. While SASE has a long list of benefits ranging from simplified WAN deployment and scalability to increased network performance and cost reduction, what we’ll focus on here is its unmatched edge to edge security—particularly how SASE is emerging as a predominant way to combat cybercriminals and their most commonly used methods of cyberattacks that frequently impact organizations.
When referring to a cyberattack, these are the categories you’re most likely going to find:
SASE is emerging as a way to defeat cybercriminals at their own game by preventing ransomware and malware from accessing industry networks. It eliminates the malicious malware from entering the network by combining core technology components, like SD-WAN, ZTNA, CASB, SWG and so much more, to create a secure environment that runs over the widely used public Internet. It prevents malware from spreading across organizations’ cloud and on-premises applications by blocking threats in real time as they are uploaded to applications or downloaded to devices. SASE can even go a step further, by blocking threats if and when an innocent user attempts to click on a malicious link.
Security teams benefit from advanced threat protection solutions that ensure consistent protection for any interaction in the cloud, on the web and in on-premises resources. The fear of cyberattacks is very real. As the threats continue to increase in our highly digital world, implementing SASE as a key line of defense is a decision every business leader should consider.
Chris Alberding oversees the company’s network and security solutions, and has global responsibilities for product revenue forecasts and budgets, as well as strategic and tactical expertise in product management, marketing, process design and sales operations.