In just a decade, the IT landscape has changed dramatically. Ten years ago, most business applications were hosted in corporate data centres, accessed by employees from the corporate network. Applications, data, and users were secured within a defined perimeter. Today, with the cloud, the rise of IoT, mobility, and remote working, the traditional security perimeter is dissolving, and the security architecture must now be tightly integrated with the network.
According to a recent survey conducted by Fortinet, in India, 82% of respondents have experienced at least a 2X increase in security incidents, and 72% reported more than triple the number of breaches. The top security incidents include phishing, denial of service, data/identity theft, ransomware, and data loss.
To address the challenges of hybrid work, many organisations in the BFSI sector are adopting/planning to invest in a single-vendor secure access service edge (SASE) solution. The term SASE (pronounced “sassy”) is a cloud architecture model that combines network and security-as-a-service functions together and delivers them as a single cloud service. According to Arunkumar Selvaraj, global head of security & compliance at TCS Enterprise Cloud, there is a trend in both the BFSI and other segments towards deploying software-defined wide area networking (SDWAN) and SASE together as part of the cloud transformation journey. This approach leverages SASE to provide high-level security at the edge while benefiting from the cost savings and manageability offered by SDWAN.
Implementing SASE has brought many advantages for the North East Small Finance Bank (NESFB), including network connectivity, device authentication, bandwidth optimisation, real-time visibility, and better security controls. Pankaj Das, head of IT Infrastructure, Network & Services at North East Small Finance Bank, informs, “SASE is a consolidated and cost-effective platform for the BFSI sector, which delivers security control, enhanced network performance, and ensures real-time visibility resulting in an immediate response in case of any security incident or non-compliance.”
V Sendil Kumar, CTO, Shriram Capital, advises that firms start with a thorough assessment of the current security infrastructure. “SASE brings security closer to the edge of the network, which is especially important for BFSI organisations with multiple branch locations,” he says.