With employees accessing applications and data through hybrid work environments, organizations need a way to secure remote workers. Secure service edges can help with this. SSE is a cloud-native architecture that delivers security and networking services together in a single platform. This enables continuous security coverage across cloud, SaaS and private applications from an unified policy framework. Access Control It is important to have an SSE solution that covers all aspects of secure service edge. As employees and trusted partners increasingly access content, apps, data, and other resources via mobile or internet devices, a SSE solution will become more and more essential. SSE secures end users against malicious attacks, allows them to securely access cloud, private and web applications, and provides monitoring of their digital experiences. SSE is a cloud-based platform that integrates networking and security functions, such as software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), firewall as a service, secure web gateways (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), and zero trust network access (ZTNA). It allows for consistent application and network security across users and locations, while also providing central visibility. SSE includes an identity-based zero trust access control system that never puts users on the corporate network. It ensures reliable and fast WAN connections, without the use of a VPN. SSE also includes a defense-in depth strategy that is effective in detecting and preventing threats such as malware. Threat Protection SSE offers protection against threats for internet sessions. It ensures users securely connect to critical applications regardless of where they are. This enables hybrid work for employees, secures cloud and private data connectivity, accelerates cloud migrations and simplifies integration during M&As. Security services are delivered from a single cloud platform that can follow user-to-app connections regardless of location or device. This reduces the risk of a breach by removing gaps between point solutions and eliminating the need for manually updating traditional legacy appliances. Zero-trust access: SSE systems must allow the least privilege access, based upon a policy of zero trust, encompassing user role, behavior, device, content, and application. This prevents lateral movement and protects applications from being discovered, reducing the attack surface. SSE enforces corporate policies for all users regardless of their location in the network, or device they use. This helps mitigate the risk of insider threats, ransomware and other threats that can occur when employees connect to sensitive data or use cloud applications that are not compliant with corporate policies. Data Security The information of remote and portable users is important to organizations. Secure service edges delivers security through the unification of web gateways (SWG), cloud-access security brokers (CASB), as well as zero-trust network access (ZTNA). SSE also offers centralized cloud data loss protection (DLP) capabilities, enabling sensitive data to be easily found, classified, and secured in a unified way. This can help support compliance policies, such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and GDPR. SSE solutions should also include advanced threat prevention features, including cloud firewalls as a service, CASB inspections of data within SaaS apps and adaptive access controls. SSE solutions must include adaptive access control, which identifies and adjusts access based on changes in device posture. Monitoring Monitoring internet sessions is important when using a secure service. This allows you the ability to track how your network performs, and which apps have been used. Monitoring helps you to identify potential problems and protect your business from threats. It can also improve user experience and lower costs. SSE platforms that can inspect web and data traffic at a global scale are crucial. Make sure the vendor you choose has strong service-level agreements (SLAs) and a track record of evaluating inline traffic for major multinational companies. One of the primary use cases for a security service edge is enforcing policy control over internet, cloud, and mobile access. This can include enforcing corporate internet and access control policies for compliance or mitigating risk through content blocking and malware isolation.