The traditional office model, with local users accessing local applications, is no longer a given. Today, users and their devices can be almost anywhere. The applications they need to access, meanwhile, are increasingly in the cloud, out of reach of traditional network security. This is where SWGs provide some important benefits.
What Are the Benefits of a SWG?
An effective SWG enables you to:
- Restrict or block access to risky or malicious websites and web-based apps
- Protect against phishing, ransomware, and other malware in real time
- Enforce compliance with company, industry, or government regulations
- Support hybrid work models with fast, seamless, and secure connections to web-based resources
Moving Beyond Traditional Infrastructure
You need a SWG to inspect traffic, identify threats, apply policy, and more. That said, if you keep relying on traditional infrastructure to secure internet-bound traffic, you’ll need to backhaul it to your data center for scanning and inspection, which will slow down traffic and frustrate your users.
Legacy solutions can’t provide adequate security in today’s cloud-based landscape. Cybercriminals are constantly creating new, sophisticated threats, and by bringing all traffic back to your data center for security, you’re opening your network to the risk of lateral movement and data breaches.
That's why you need a SWG built for the cloud and zero trust, able to inspect all traffic and enforce least-privileged access without conferring implicit trust.
