How the Cato Networks SASE approach improves security

OP-ED · 15 NOVEMBER 2023

By David Werquin · Lire en français

With technologies and cyber threats constantly evolving, network security is becoming a major issue for businesses. In this context, the Secure Access Service Edge(SASE) model is emerging as an innovative approach, offering an integrated, global and converged cloud architecture to strengthen security while optimising performance.

SASE in a few points:

100% cloud: SASE is a managed service built on a cloud-native architecture for greater agility and flexibility.
Convergence: SASE brings network and security capabilities together on a single platform, meeting the need for simplified management and pervasive cybersecurity.
Distributed: a true SASE approach relies on a global, private backbone of geographically distributed points of presence to optimise traffic routing and guarantee performance and scalability.
Support for all devices: SASE securely connects every asset (sites, users, internal applications and applications running in public clouds) to deliver a consistent and secure user experience, whatever the way of working.

What are the security benefits?

With attacks becoming ever more sophisticated and the exposure of information systems changing as a result of cloud migration and increased mobile use, traditional security models show increasingly obvious gaps. Perimeter firewalls and stacks of complex, heterogeneous security products are no longer enough to protect an extended and diverse IT environment.

The Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) model is at the heart of the SASE philosophy. By abandoning the idea of implicit trust, ZTNA requires continuous verification of identity and permissions, reducing the risks of unauthorised access.

The convergence of traffic into a global cloud, which is inherent to the very definition of SASE, gives security mechanisms complete visibility and a central position. It delivers a consistent user experience, regardless of where users are and where the resources they access are located.

How does Cato Networks improve security?

Cato Networks offers a complete suite of security services built directly into its SASE architecture. This includes a next-generation firewall, deep SSL inspection, advanced threat protection, IPS, CASB, DLP and much more.

Thanks to this integration, companies can strengthen their security posture without needing complex third-party tools. By performing security processing in a single pass, Cato Networks offers an efficient, consistent and high-performing approach to corporate network security. Aligned with the SASE architecture, this methodology removes the traditional obstacles of complexity and performance, giving companies security without compromise.

By enabling in-depth analysis of encrypted traffic, TLS inspection provides crucial visibility into secure communications. This makes it possible to detect and prevent potential threats that might otherwise go unnoticed in encrypted traffic. By temporarily decrypting TLS traffic, security devices can apply filtering policies, threat analysis and data loss prevention, strengthening overall network protection. Since everything happens in the cloud, this processing, which can be resource-intensive when handled locally, has no negative impact on latency, performance or appliance sizing.
Cato Networks IPS is a proactive barrier against threats. By analysing network traffic in real time, it identifies intrusion attempts and instantly blocks attacks before they can compromise the network. This proactive security layer is essential to maintain network integrity and protect companies' sensitive data, for all types of internal and external, inbound and outbound traffic.
Cato Networks anti-malware goes beyond simple virus signatures by using advanced behavioural analysis techniques. By monitoring suspicious activity, it identifies and eradicates malware in real time. Companies thus benefit from constantly evolving protection against emerging threats and targeted attacks.
Cato Networks DNS protection acts as a first line of defence, blocking malicious requests before they even reach the network. By securing the DNS resolution process, it prevents phishing, ransomware and other DNS-based threats, strengthening security at a fundamental level.
The Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) provides complete visibility and granular control over access to cloud applications. It secures sensitive data by detecting and preventing threats linked to cloud applications, while enabling agile and secure use of cloud services. With features such as data loss prevention (DLP), application governance and traffic encryption, Cato's CASB acts as the vigilant guardian of the modern enterprise, ensuring secure adoption of cloud technologies without compromising data protection and privacy.
When these security mechanisms cannot give a definitive answer on how dangerous a connection is, because the destinations or domains are too recent to have been categorised, Cato Networks automatically activates a user device protection mechanism through Remote Browser Isolation (RBI). Cato Networks RBI fully isolates the user's browser from potentially dangerous websites. Rather than running the browser locally, web requests are processed in a remote, virtual, secure and ephemeral environment. So even if a user accesses a phishing site, the malicious content stays confined to the isolated environment.

It would make little sense to talk about convergence with SASE without a fully unified cloud management console.

The Cato Networks single management console is the hub of simplified, centralised network and security management.

Bringing all features together in a consistent interface, this console provides complete visibility of the entire system, allowing administrators to monitor, configure and optimise performance and security in one place. Whether deploying security policies, managing remote access or monitoring network traffic, the Cato Networks single console offers an intuitive and efficient user experience. By consolidating operations management, it frees up valuable time for IT teams, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives rather than tedious administrative tasks.

This console provides access to comprehensive, dynamic application and security analytics dashboards. It gives simple, fast and intuitive access to all event logs. It recently went much further by integrating a SIEM that aggregates and correlates security alerts from the built-in security engines, and is also able to correlate complex indicators such as unusual behaviour, attack scenarios and weak signals. It provides administrators and security analysts with the data essential for investigations and alert triage, bringing together summarised information from event logs and indicators of compromise and enriching it with external data sources, all without ever having to switch consoles.

Based on dynamic data analysis, Cato Networks identifies alert scenarios. These "stories" are built through the SIEM's correlation engines and make security analysts' investigation work easier and more efficient.

💡 To see how effective Cato Networks SASE really is, nothing beats a demo!

Book a demo →

👀 To find out more about Cato Networks x SASETY, Cato's No. 1 partner in France 🇫🇷 👇

Learn more →