It’s no secret cybersecurity is a major concern of enterprises today. All over the world, organizations are at risk of falling victim to the traps of dangerous online criminals. This is why a secure web gateway is important.
Protect Against Incoming Threats
Now more than ever, enterprises need to think about their front lines of defense against incoming threats online. Malware is lurking all over the internet. Users connected to your network might unknowingly visit a site that allows malware to infiltrate their device or your network.
Without a secure web gateway, organizations are far more vulnerable to potential risks online. As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, it’s all the more reason to consider the benefits of a secure web gateway.
One of these is by scanning traffic for dangerous content. Enabling SSL scanning and TLS interception gives you the capability of scanning encrypted traffic as well as non-encrypted. This keeps enterprise networks far more secure.
Customize Policies for Different Groups
Not all groups within your enterprise are going to necessarily require the same kinds of protection or access. Authenticating network users allows for much more flexible applications of secure web gateway policies. With authentication, you can ensure users aren’t going to stumble upon a website where they might end up causing harm to the enterprise network.
At the same time, there might be certain URLs or other permissions levels that you want to customize, as opposed to set as a standard throughout the organization. There can be many reasons for this. Limiting access to network applications to trusted users and devices minimizes the chances of a breach.
Monitor and Control Network Web Traffic
With a secure web gateway, enterprises get an unprecedented level of visibility control over their network web traffic. This is incredibly important in a world where threats could be lurking in unexpected places at any time. As already mentioned, the ability to filter URLs and scan encrypted traffic are both ways organizations can control the traffic on their networks. This can go even farther, however, when your secure web gateway is provided as a service through a cloud security provider.
There are a couple ways going the route of security as a service can benefit enterprises in the long run. In terms of monitoring network web traffic, you’re going to have an expert set of eyes watching over you on top of your internal IT department. This aspect alone can make working with a provider worth it, as having that additional expertise and surveillance can stop breaches before they become a problem.
Additionally, working with a service provider can actually lower the overall costs of your cybersecurity and network architecture if you’re getting several elements together. For instance, a software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) solution built in tandem with security tools can be a powerful network architecture for any enterprise. It’s wise to consider if going this path can actually save your organization valuable resources, while simultaneously improving security.
Filter Harmful Sites Automatically
You can’t control what your employees do online. What you can do, however, is control what parts of the internet they’re allowed to access on enterprise networks. Automatically filtering potentially harmful sites from employees is one of the most essential functions of a secure web gateway.
The sites employees might feel comfortable visiting on their personal devices might not be safe for an enterprise network. By creating custom filtering protocols based on various risk factors, it’s possible to keep people off most harmful sites altogether.
There has never been a time where secure web gateways are more important for organizations. When you consider the average cost of a data breach in the United States runs at a cost of over $8 million, it makes sense to take cybersecurity extra seriously. Utilizing a secure web gateway is one of the best ways to do this.
