AT&T Business is all-in on Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) as an essential framework for security-driven networking. As the AT&T Cybersecurity team endeavors to help organizations transition to SASE frameworks, it’s picking up accolades not only from valued AT&T customers but also the broader cybersecurity community.

SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) is a network architecture that unifies network and security solutions into a cloud-based service to enhance accessibility, efficiency, and cybersecurity. The concept of SASE was introduced in Gartner's 2019 report 'The Future of Network Security Is in the Cloud'. The concept emerged from organizations' increasing demand for reliable access across transforming network approaches.

In 2019, when the term Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE, was first coined, it was to define a useful way of setting up the network and security infrastructure to satisfy a cloud-first future with services at the edge. Since then, SASE has been long on hype and discussion, but short on actual, practical advice. What does SASE mean for your digital transformation strategy?

The global pandemic further accelerated a trend toward remote work that was already underway, even in federal, state, and local agencies that previously resisted it. But as agencies continue to offer telework options to employees, they must also rethink their security stack to better mitigate the cybersecurity risks that remote work catalyzes. Traditional, perimeter-based approaches to security will no longer work in a cloud-first environment where data can, and is, accessed from just about anywhere.

Over the last year, we’ve made tremendous progress expanding NewEdge to provide Netskope customers with the global coverage they demand. We have real, full-compute data centers in nearly 50 regions today and plans to go live with our Lima, Peru data center in early October (which will be our fifth in Latin America).

The SASE journey requires reliable partners with truly integrated platform capabilities, not vendors wielding smoke-and-mirrors-style marketing proclaiming “SASE” in giant headlines. But clarity is critical, and both SASE and the more-recently-coined security service edge (SSE) terminology, can be a little confusing.

Malware detection is an important part of the Netskope Security Cloud platform, complete with a secure access service edge (SASE) architecture, that we provide to our customers. Malware is malicious software that is designed to harm or exploit devices and computer systems. Various types of malware, such as viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, and spyware, remain a serious problem for corporations and government agencies.