Quantifying The Benefits Of SASE

While we understand the potential benefits pushing organizations towards SASE (better security, improved user experiences, and more efficient operations), the fact that the market remains in its early stages leaves a shortage of information around the actual benefits those organizations that have implemented SASE have seen. To gain insight into how the maturity of an organization’s approach to SASE impacts both security and business objectives, Forcepoint commissioned the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) to conduct a research study, the key findings from which include:

Unsurprisingly, few organizations have reached the third stage of SASE maturity and can be accurately described as Leaders (see Figure 1). Those identified as Leaders can use this report within their organization to validate the advantages they can expect to see based on the benefits others who have adopted SASE architectures have reaped. The majority (55%) of our respondents were grouped in the Follower category. These organizations have a solid foundation from which to build towards a more mature SASE approach and can use the data in this report to close the gaps between themselves and Leaders. One-third of organizations represented were grouped as Emerging. While these organizations may still have work to accomplish with regards to SASE, understanding the benefits the approach provides and best practices Leaders employ can help them to prioritize areas of focus to refine their SASE approach over time.

Figure 1. Distribution of SASE Maturity Stages

Respondents by SASE maturity. (Percent of respondents, N=400)

Figure 2. Cybersecurity Teams Must Generate Both Security and Business Outcomes

Security Effectiveness

As discussed, a key driver of SASE has been the need to better architect security to address the inverted access paradigm: users and applications are more commonly outside of corporate offices and data centers than within. The pandemic has only exacerbated this trend, with respondents reporting that the percentage of their employees working remotely has increased from 20% prior to the COVID outbreak to 53% today. Leading organizations were much more likely to characterize the efforts to pivot security towards remote users as very smooth—39% versus only 8% of Emerging organizations. But of even more importance than the friction (or lack thereof) of securing remote users is the effectiveness of the approach. Here again, our Leaders performed much better than their Emerging counterparts and were 4.2 times more likely to indicate that they were very confident in their ability to secure employees working from home (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Confidence in Securing a Distributed Workforce Rises with SASE Maturity

How confident are you in your organization’s security posture now that you are securing more employees working from home? (Percent of respondents)

Figure 4. Leading Organizations Have Prioritized Zero Trust Network Access

Which of the following statements best describes your organization’s approach to securing remote access? (Percent of respondents)

Operational Efficiency

A core component of SASE is vendor consolidation and streamlining of the perimeter security infrastructure through a converged approach. Various benefits come from having fewer vendors in the environment such as improved efficiency, increased simplicity, and more consistent management. However, this consolidation does not require sacrificing functionality. In fact, Leading organizations are 5.6 times as likely as Emerging organizations to have been significantly increasing the capabilities and functions in use at the edge (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. Mature SASE Organizations Are Able to Utilize More Solution Functionality

Which best describes the trend in how many different functions/capabilities are in use across the perimeter/edge security controls deployed at your organization over the past 12 months? (Percent of respondents)

Organizational dynamics play a key role in enabling this outcome. Procuring, deploying, and managing security tools is a team sport, requiring collaboration across a variety of groups, including IT, network, and security operations. Traditionally, IT operations has held tremendous influence over the selection and purchase of security tools. However, the pendulum is swinging towards the security and network organizations, giving these specialists more influence in the process and ensuring that the tools procured better align to their specific needs.

The combination of fewer vendors and better upfront solution qualification helps ensure that the functional capabilities of products deployed are used to their full extent and that organizations do not end up with unused shelfware. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that Leading organizations report significantly better collaboration across all the different groups involved in perimeter security procurement, deployment, and management (see Figure 6).

Figure 6. Strong Cross-functional Collaboration is a Key to SASE Success

Think about interactions the IT operations, network operations, and security operations teams have had. What is the quality of the collaboration in each of the following areas? (Percent of respondents rating collaboration as "Extremely good")

Business Enablement

The convergence of previously siloed tools, reduction of vendors, and better utilization of product capabilities also provide better visibility across the usage of cloud services. Most organizations have resources spread across a multitude of SaaS and IaaS providers. CASB, ZTNA, and even traditional VPN tools may all support access to these applications to one extent or another. Managing visibility across all these different tools is cumbersome and ineffective.

The convergence of previously siloed tools, reduction of vendors, and better utilization of product capabilities also provide better visibility across the usage of cloud services. Most organizations have resources spread across a multitude of SaaS and IaaS providers. CASB, ZTNA, and even traditional VPN tools may all support access to these applications to one extent or another. Managing visibility across all these different tools is cumbersome and ineffective.

Figure 7. SASE Helps Reduce the Cloud Visibility Gap

How confident are you that the IT/security team is aware of all IaaS and SaaS usage by line-of-business employees at your organization? (Percent of respondents)

A critical aspect of this visibility is data security, and DLP specifically. While the user, device, and application are all important aspects of access control, ultimately, the type and sensitivity of the data being used must be accounted for. This is complicated by the fact that different toolsets often have visibility over different parts of the infrastructure in support of DLP. CASB, endpoint, network, and secure web gateway tools all may have some level of DLP functionality. Leading organizations realize this and are more than 3x as likely as Emerging organizations to use at least 4 tools with DLP capabilities. However, as we’ve seen, these organizations are actively reducing the number of vendors in their environments and doing a better job of integrating visibility across all these controls to ensure consistency and reduce blind spots. With regards to data loss prevention, this is critical to ensure that corporate policy is correctly enforced regardless of where data resides or where the user accessing it is located.

As discussed, cybersecurity must be considered through the lens of not just protecting the organization but also enabling the business as well. SASE represents the evolution of network security for networked resources to better address the reality of modern enterprise environments. This means moving beyond firewall-centric architectures and towards approaches that incorporate web, SaaS, private application, and data security. The goal must be a frictionless experience for business leaders and developers to allow them to focus on generating revenue and positive user experiences for customers.

Due to the improved level of visibility SASE provides, a majority (53%) of Leading organizations report that security does not limit cloud adoption. Only 29% of Emerging organizations feel the same way (see Figure 8). More specifically, Leaders run an average of 128 business-critical cloud applications as compared to their Emerging counterparts who run an average of 81.

Even more telling, the organizations that have prioritized SASE and realized cloud acceleration benefits are 4.4 times as likely to have extremely satisfied line-of-business users. To summarize: SASE ensures that security is not an inhibitor to cloud adoptions, enables organizations to support a higher number of applications in the cloud, and ultimately leads to more satisfied users.

Figure 8. SASE Reduces Impediments to SaaS and IaaS Adoption

How would you describe how your organization’s security posture/capabilities has impacted its organization’s adoption of IaaS and SaaS? (Percent of respondents)

The reasons for shifting resources to the cloud have been well established over the years, with resiliency being a prime motivator for many. The scalability and flexibility of the cloud enables organizations to be more agile and adaptive, something that should take on more importance considering the impact of the pandemic. So how does SASE impact resiliency? Leading organizations were 3.9 times more likely than their Emerging counterparts to be very confident in their organizational resilience (see Figure 9).

Figure 9. Mature SASE Organizations Have More Confidence in Their Resilience

How confident are you in your organization’s ability to adapt and thrive through major societal and macroeconomic disruptions? (Percent of respondents)

Cost

Despite recognizing all the aforementioned benefits, organizations with a mature approach to SASE are more likely to report cost savings across both solution/subscription and operational expenses (see Figure 10). Working with fewer vendors and developing more strategic partnerships with suppliers can help optimize upfront procurement costs. Yet perhaps more importantly, Leading organizations reported a 14% reduction in operational costs, compared to just a 1% reduction by Emerging organizations. Reducing the number of management systems administrators must be trained on, eliminating duplicative policy management across different systems and the potential for human error that it can cause, and improving the efficiency of threat detection and response are all direct benefits of SASE approaches, which ultimately can help reduce operational costs.

Figure 10. Despite Using More Tools and Functionality, Mature SASE Organizations Report Lower Costs

By approximately what percentage have your organization’s solution/subscription costs related to perimeter/edge security controls increased or decreased over the past 12 months? (Mean, N=385)