A secure web gateway protects your organization as a checkpoint for internet access and data. Each outgoing web request is examined before it leaves your network to ensure that the content or code doesn’t violate acceptable use policies.
With today’s workforce increasingly working from remote endpoints, it’s vital to have the right tools to protect your company.
Increased Visibility and Control
With threats at an all-time high and remote workers relying on cloud applications, organizations need the visibility and control that only a SWG can provide. Unlike firewalls, which monitor network-level traffic, SWGs inspect web-based data and content to ensure it aligns with the organization’s security policies. This is especially important given how often employees work from outside the office. SWGs can help protect against insider threats involving the exfiltration of sensitive information and external risks from the web.
A secure web gateway is a hardware or software-based solution that sits on the network perimeter and acts as a proxy for all internal endpoints to and from the internet. It inspects all web requests, enforcing corporate policies on who can access what, when, where, and how. It can also block unauthorized and potentially malicious sites and limit data loss with advanced features like content filtering and secure browsing.
The SWG can also scan all data and contents for viruses, malware, ransomware, bots, and other malicious code to prevent unauthorized or unwanted downloads, reducing the risk of cyberattacks on sensitive data. It can then block or quarantine any malicious files and log all activity, threats, and policy violations for further monitoring, reporting, and forensic analysis.
SWGs can be deployed on-premises, as part of a traditional infrastructure, or in the cloud for greater scalability and ease of deployment. They can also be integrated with other key technologies such as CASBs, DLP, and SD-WAN to form a complete, unified platform known as the secure access service edge (SASE) model. This provides a more cohesive and comprehensive approach to zero trust with unified visibility and single-pane-of-glass management.
Easier Compliance
Many companies are moving toward a zero-trustmodel, and SWGs can be essential to this approach. Suppose your business uses a cloud service for specific applications. In that case, you can integrate it into your SWG to inspect traffic, identify threats, and apply policies in line without having to backhaul that traffic to the data center for inspection. This significantly reduces network congestion and the security risks that come with it.
SWGs also help organizations manage shadow IT by identifying and responding to illicit applications on employee devices. This is critical since many apps are designed to bypass corporate IT controls and wreak havoc in the network. With a SWG, you can block unauthorized apps and limit their ability to download files, which helps protect your organization against security threats.
Lastly, SWGs can provide granular control of web application traffic to comply with regulatory requirements. An SWG can identify users based on identity by leveraging single sign-on or explicit usernames and passwords. Based on this information, the SWG can grant varying access levels to different users for specific applications and websites.
SWGs can also detect and stop sensitive data leaks, often when employees send confidential information to unauthorized recipients or sites. For instance, SWGs can scan email content to look for patterns that indicate the presence of sensitive data, such as 16-digit payment card industry (PCI) numbers or personally identifiable information. This data can then be blocked, redacted, or sent to a sandbox for safe destruction.
Better End-User Experience
A secure web gateway helps protect your business against security threats. These tools, whether on-premises or in the cloud, analyze data and content in a network to detect malware, viruses, threats, phishing attacks, unpatched vulnerabilities, and more. They offer a full suite of features that can protect your organization against these security risks and improve productivity by removing unnecessary software from user-initiated internet connections.
Depending on the SWG solution, its core functionality may include URL filtering to control which websites employees can access, application control to determine which resources different applications can use, and remote browser isolation (RBI) that isolates active code from reaching your corporate network. For some solutions, this can also help prevent a virus from entering your network and causing disruptions to users and operations.
Another SWG feature that many organizations find useful is content filtering. This identifies specific types of content, such as explicit images or videos, and blocks them from entering your network. This is particularly helpful for businesses with a distributed workforce, as it allows them to monitor the activities of their remote workers and avoids data breaches even though they don’t have direct control over their employees’ devices or networks.
With so much of your business operations online, having a good SWG solution is crucial for protecting your organization from cyber threats and keeping your employees and customers safe. A SWG can work with your existing cybersecurity programs to provide complete protection and reduce the risk of a breach.
Better Security
A secure web gateway is crucial to any layered security architecture, especially in today’s workplace. With remote workforces, distributed networks, and reliance on software as a service solution, organizations are more vulnerable to cyberattacks than ever. SWGs provide a critical first line of defense by filtering out unsafe content and preventing risky user behavior.
Many modern secure gateways can inspect TLS-encrypted web traffic to identify malware, attacks, or vulnerabilities hidden in the encryption. To do this, the gateway proxy decrypts the encrypted traffic into plain text and then analyzes it. Then, the data is re-encrypted and sent to its destination.
A modern, cloud-delivered secure gateway is designed with these challenges in mind, allowing for granular control and a high level of protection that can be customized to meet the unique needs of individual companies.
Singh is an experienced spiritual writer and the resident author at Guruvanee.com. With a deep passion for exploring the mystical aspects of life, Singh delves into various spiritual traditions, philosophies, and practices to inspire readers on their spiritual journeys.