Understanding SASE: A Comprehensive Security Framework
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is a holistic security model that integrates both networking and security functions into a single, cloud-native architecture. SASE security combines secure network access, SASE cloud security and zero-trust technologies to create a unified approach to protecting the enterprise networks of today.
SASE can be extremely useful especially for organizations adopting digital transformation and remote work. Some of the SASE benefits are:
- Flexibility: Cloud-based consolidation of security and networking services provide maximum flexibility to adapt to dynamic environments enabling seamless transition between remote work, hybrid, and complete cloud migration models.
- Increased Security: SASE helps to protect the data from evolving cyber threats with features like Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and Zero-day threat prevention and protection.
- Scalability: As businesses expand, so do their security and networking needs. SASE is designed to grow with businesses, offering rapid scalability through its cloud-native architecture while providing reliable performance.
- Enhanced Remote Access: SASE provides secure, low-latency access to cloud and on-prem applications, enhancing user experience for remote workers.
- Centralized Management: SASE simplifies security management by bringing policies and controls together into a single, simpler-to-manage platform.
In short, SASE represents an evolution in network architecture that is both flexible enough to meet the current security demand and a relatively autonomous framework on its own for these new hybrid work models.
What is NDR and Why is It Important?
Network Detection and Response (NDR) is a cybersecurity solution used to detect threats within a network by using advanced technology which cannot easily be traced by signature-based technique. It detects real-time threats by using machine learning and behavior analytics. Any unusual or anomaly detection is being eradicated, and potential threats get neutralized. NDR works with existing security tools and provides a brief report on the event for security assessments.
Unlike endpoint focused solutions, Network Detection and Response plays a crucial role in monitoring the whole complex security infrastructure. Here are some benefits of NDR:
Broad network visibility – NDR provides a centralized framework for the security infrastructure of the whole network. It analyzes the traffic and detects unusual activities, thereby raising an alarm to the management. Moreover, management can also have a unified view making it easier to control the whole network
Early detection and Rapid response – NDR is effective to detect anomalies or Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) that were undetectable by traditional security tools. It triggers the alarm and ensures quick responses to eliminate potential damage.
Broad Analytical data Inputs – In the event of breach, NDR provides full forensics of the attack and allows the management to have an efficient post-incident analysis. It facilitates the security team for threat-hunting and enables them to eliminate the potential threat or identify the gaps in the security.
Why SASE Alone May Not Be Enough
While SASE addresses access security, integrating NDR and SASE ensures full-spectrum protection by overcoming these limitations. Hence it does not work as a standalone solution and has some limitations. For a better understanding below is the list of SASE challenges:
Performance Latency: SASE security controls the network traffic and ensures it travels through the designed path resulting in delay particularly for real-time applications. Moreover, it requires an expert team to monitor the path of traffic towards an efficient network to avoid any downtime of application.
Visibility: As SASE is hosted in the cloud, the outcomes are totally dependent on the cloud provider, and it gets difficult for network engineers to gain overall visibility. As most of the data is encrypted, lack of visibility can lead to impact on services.
Complexities and Evolving threats: SASE mechanism fails to detect anomalies or threats within the network and totally depends on the user authentication, it requires other security solutions like endpoint detection and response (EDR), or extended detection and response (XDR), intrusion detection systems (IDS). It fails to detect and tackle the evolving threats and is more prone to cyber-attacks.
Limited Customization: SASE solutions often come with standardized configurations that may not align with specific organizational needs, making it less adaptable to unique security requirements.
Resource-Intensive Deployment: Implementing SASE requires significant time, expertise, and resources, which can strain smaller IT teams or businesses with limited budgets.
In addition to the limitations, secure access service edge has gaps in its identity authentication program. Any cyber attacker can pose with real credentials and can gain access to the network, can move laterally and collect sensitive information or inject malware within the network. Hence SASE single handedly fails to deliver the ultimate security infrastructure.
How NDR Complements SASE for Complete Network Security
Integrating NDR and SASE creates a unified security framework, where NDR secures the network and SASE ensures secure access to resources. NDR and SASE together complement each other and make a complete security solution. Here how it works:
Comprehensive Network visibility – As SASE security provides secure access within application or cloud, it fails to detect threat, anomalous behavior, lateral movement within the network. With NDR in place, the security team gets full visibility including encrypted traffic which provides deeper insights of the security web.
Real-time threat detection – NDR ensures real-time threat detection and ensures to eliminate it before causing any effect. While SASE network architecture blocks known threats, NDR does threat hunting and detects malware or potential threat within the network. It uses its machine learning and is able to tackle evolved threats which may not be possible in SASE.
Enhanced Threat Intelligence and Analytics – SASE only provides alerts regarding breaches on access level but does not provide detailed threat intelligence specifically on encrypted data. However, NDR provides a comprehensive report on the breach event within the network and helps the security team to detect activity and cover potential threats. It uncovers the hidden threats that may go unnoticed and annihilate them proactively.
Discover how combining NDR with SASE strengthens your security infrastructure. In this webinar, you’ll learn how to:
- Enhance threat detection and response
- Integrate secure access seamlessly
- Strengthen network defenses
Evaluating Your Office’s Network Security Needs
Building an effective defense against ever-evolving threats requires understanding your office’s network security requirements. Assess your existing network security solutions to find any gaps in your defense. Evaluate your existing solutions with respect to reliability on cloud and the complexity of a distributed and remote environment.
While evaluating your office’s network, assess your security measures and their effectiveness. Do they have the capability to deal with insider threats or advanced persistent threats? Does your network monitoring offer any external/internal real-time visibility? Evaluate if your current tools can provide the scalability and flexibility needed for your business.
In order to provide a guiding principle for this evaluation, here are some critical questions that you can consider and ask yourself:
- Is your office at the risk of insider attacks on the network
- Do you process confidential information that needs to be monitored continuously to prevent any unauthorized access or breach
- Do your employees access resources from multiple locations, including remote setups
- Is your security framework growing with the expansion of your digital business
Assessing all the factors enables you to identify weak points and assess if your current setup is enough, or if more solutions need to be connected, such as Network Detection and Response (NDR) with SASE security for comprehensive security.
Key Considerations for Implementing Both SASE and NDR
The combination of SASE and NDR creates a harmonious composition that will offset both external and internal threats to network protection. However, in order for them to work in their most effective manner, you have to take some things into account such as integration and scaling and make sure they truly fit your organization. These are important things to consider while implementing it:
- Integration & Compatibility: SASE and NDR solutions are a part of your IT infrastructure, so make sure they can integrate well with what you already have in place. Compatible tools reduce friction, enabling these applications to seamlessly collaborate and fortify your security perimeter.
- Scalability And Flexibility: Opt for platforms that can grow with your organization. Whether you are expanding, configuring more users, or adopting a hybrid/cloud native data environment, your secure access service edge solution and NDR need to scale with you.
- Cost-effectiveness: Assess the total cost of ownership (TCO) for SASE and NDR, factoring in subscription costs and operational expenses. Balance these expenses against possible savings from prevention through higher quality detection and breach avoidance.
- Centralized Management: Select solutions with unified dashboards for monitoring, managing and reporting. This lower complexity for IT teams and increases operational efficiency.
- Vendor Support and Dependability: Choose trusted vendors that offer regular updates, robust customer support, and comprehensive training to ensure your team utilizes these solutions to their fullest capabilities.
Strengthening Network Security with SASE and Fidelis Network®
With the increasing sophistication of cyber threats, a proactive and layered approach to security is essential for organizations. SASE security offers a solid security and networking framework, but it is simply not enough to deal with advanced, modern and adaptive threats operating in the network. And this is where Network Detection and Response (NDR) complements the existing solution stack in addressing those vital blind spots by providing deep visibility, immediate threat detection, and rich analytics for detecting and mitigating hidden risks.
Solutions such as Fidelis Network® can play a critical role in how SASE mechanism is ultimately deployed, helping organizations build a more complete security posture that is both resilient and holistic. To sum up, the Fidelis Network® is an irrefutable network security solution that protects your organization by delivering intelligent threat detection, prioritizing risk visibility across local and cloud networks, and automating response actions.
As you assess the security needs of your office, ask yourself whether your solutions offer enough depth of visibility, scalability, and threat intelligence. SASE and NDR working together not only enables you to better protect your organization but ensure your business is ready for success in a world that requires complexity, hybrid, cloud-native capabilities.
Threat Protection offered by Fidelis Network® Detection and Response:
- Data Theft
- Lateral Movement in Network
- Malware Threat
Frequently Ask Questions
Does the future of network security lie with SASE?
SASE — short for Secure Access Service Edge — represents the future of network security, consolidating networking and security functions into a single cloud-native framework. SASE is flexible, scalable, and provides secure access to distributed environments to secure remote employees and cloud adoption. But SASE is not the all-inclusive answer to network security; in fact, it achieves nearly its full potential only when paired with complementary technologies. Given the constantly evolving threat landscape, simply deploying SASE and ignoring other pressing security needs within organizations would be naïve and detrimental in terms of ensuring a comprehensive security posture. Pairing SASE with other solutions such as NDR (Network Detection and Response) is essential to gain deeper visibility into network traffic and create a future-ready security strategy.
Do I need NDR if I have SASE?
Yes. SASE is designed to be suitable for the security access and data of any resource, but at scale it has limitations in detecting and responding to internal threats, lateral movement, and advanced persistent threats (APTs) within the network.
NDR enhances SASE, NDR brings real-time threat detection, deep network visibility and full scope of threat intelligence to fill in important security gaps that cannot be addressed if you exclusively rely on SASE. This forms a holistic security framework for protection against 21st century cyber-attacks.
Do I need SASE if I have NDR?
Yes, SASE and NDR address different aspects of network security, and having one does not eliminate the need for the other. While NDR focuses on detecting and responding to network-level threats and provides detailed forensic analysis, it does not manage secure access or enforce zero-trust principles. SASE ensures secure connectivity across distributed networks, enabling secure access for remote and hybrid workforces while integrating security features like CASB, SWG, and ZTNA. To achieve end-to-end network security, both solutions should work in tandem, complementing each other’s capabilities.
