Summary:
Protecting against escalating threats requires a sophisticated security architecture. Today, SASE is recognized as the most powerful strategy to thwart cyberattacks. Discover the latest enhancements we’ve added to make our solution the most competitive and effective solution in the market.
More than ever, the business landscape driving digital transformation is increasingly complex. The acceleration of cloud-based application adoption and the rising risk of cybercrime create new challenges for lean enterprise IT teams who need to ensure easy access and absolute protection for an often dispersed, remote workforce.
When we initially launched our Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution back in 2022, we did so in tangent with an environment that was becoming increasingly hybrid/remote environment, seeing a significant rise in cybercrime and experiencing shrinking IT teams with limited security expertise. While much has occurred since then, our business landscape is still very much dictated by these challenges—even more so than before.
Fortunately, Windstream Enterprise SASE, powered by Cato entered the scene at the right time, providing capabilities that would enable organizations to deliver protected networking and security services as the landscape continues to evolve. By providing a layered, interwoven fabric of network and security technologies that work together to protect an organization’s data and systems from unwanted access, SASE offered novel new ways to manage and orchestrate one’s unified network security framework from the cloud using an intuitive self-service portal, reducing complexity and simplifying management. Even our Security Service Edge (SSE) offering, which is just the security components of SASE, empowers businesses to instantly integrate next-generation security components into existing network environments without disruption.
What’s new with our SASE and SSE?
Just as our business environment refuses to stay stagnant, so do we. That’s why we’ve rolled out additional important SASE enhancements to our already robust offering—keeping you one step ahead of an ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity.
1. Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
EPP helps safeguard individual devices from malware and security threats in a few ways. According to Gartner, it’s “a solution deployed on endpoint devices to prevent file-based malware attacks, detect malicious activity, and provide the investigation and remediation capabilities needed to respond to dynamic security incidents and alerts.”
What makes Cato’s EPP particular powerful is that it’s the industry’s first SASE-managed solution protecting endpoints against advanced evasive attacks and zero-day threats. It adds endpoint protection and detection to this multi-layer SASE architecture while reducing management overhead, increasing security teams’ efficiency, and improving the enterprise security posture. This integrated “Detection and Response” is what takes EPP to the next level of security with a single solution, instead of multiple point solutions.
2. Managed Extended Detection & Response (MXDR)
MXDR is an expansion of the original SASE feature XDR, which has advanced to offer continuous 24×7 monitoring of an organization’s IT environment, and immediate threat response to ensure swift action isolates and neutralizes a threat in real time. MXDR also proactively searches for potential threats before they escalate into breaches by using the latest in cyberthreat intelligence, along with forensic analysis and investigation that uncovers the root causes of security incidents. And with compliance assurance, Windstream Enterprise SASE strongly adheres to regulatory requirements that allow businesses to meet compliance and audit standards with ease.
3. Threat Prevention
Threat prevention takes SASE to the next level by combining a series of six incredible features that have the power to protect your organization better than ever before:
- Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Real-time protection against advanced cyberthreats that applies to all traffic, Internet, WAN and the cloud to prevent data theft and ransomware.
- Next-Gen Anti-Malware (NGAM): Malware detection for zero-day attacks in
real-time as files are transmitted across the Internet, WAN and the cloud. - DNS Security: No longer can malicious activity attempts hide within
the protocol’s traffic — Domain Name System (DNS) security-based requests to malicious destinations are blocked before a connection is made. - Threat Intelligence: An AI-based system autonomously aggregates reputation scores from 250+ threat intelligence feeds. An updated and aggregated blacklist is automatically published to all points of presence (PoPs) and ensures up-to-date protection with near zero false positives.
- Real-time AI & Machine Learning: According to Cato Networks, the artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities within Threat Prevention are used to “continuously monitor device behavior and identifies potential vulnerabilities associated with outdated software versions and risky applications.”
- Anti-Phishing: Take it a step further by blocking known phishing sites based on reputation, and with AI and machine learning, this feature can even identify sites not yet blacklisted.
Comprehensive security and advanced network capabilities, all in one.
By combining all of these advanced new features into one SSE or SASE solution, it’s never been easier to manage the complicated cybersecurity universe that we live in. We often see enterprises struggle with the complexity that comes with managing multiple security tools and platforms. With Windstream Enterprise’s managed SASE and SSE offerings, powered by the Cato SASE Cloud platform, customers can easily consolidate these core features into a unified framework—making it easier for businesses to elevate network performance and security and manage their security posture more effectively.
To learn more about these security solutions to see how Windstream Enterprise can support your needs. We have a team of dedicated security experts ready to answer your questions and get you going on your journey toward a groundbreaking network security transformation.
