Anyone can become a victim of cyberattacks. Especially these days, cybercriminals continuously find new ways to sophisticate their attacks and bypass cybersecurity solutions. Cybercriminals can use social engineering to customize their phishing attacks and insert malvertising attacks on reliable websites. Not every time malicious content is identified and can go unnoticed. These actors may lead to data breaches resulting in major harm to corporations.
That’s why implementing a secure web gateway solution is critical to enhance the network perimeter security and protect users from cyber threats. SWG keeps corporations compliant by enforcing company policies and regulations. It provides control of network traffic in real-time and SSL/TLS inspection before applying the policies. It is an essential tool for businesses that must especially comply with regulations.
A secure web gateway (SWG) is a cyber security solution that offers real-time network traffic inspection and enforcement of company security policies for protection. Secure web gateway protects users and company data against malicious codes and cyber attacks by inspecting the Internet traffic and filtering out malicious activity. In other words, it prevents unprotected traffic in the network. If an activity or an application is detected as a threat or unsafe, a secure web gateway simply blocks it. Additionally, SWG enforces company regulatory policies to be implemented and complied with. Overall, SWG ensures network perimeter protection.
A secure web gateway offers various features for cybersecurity and it consists of URL filtering, application control, malware detection and filtration, data loss prevention (DLP), IP masking, traffic encryption, and content filtering. These features ensure SWG (Secure Web Gateway) security. URL filtering, application control, data loss prevention, and malware scanning are a must for network protection. SWG security by NordLayer offers various other features that focus on security along with these essentials.
By URL filtering, a secure web gateway ensures the prevention of common cyber threats such as phishing attacks and known malicious websites. Secure web gateway restricts access to unsafe applications and websites. It usually functions around blocklists and allowlists. Blacklisting specific harmful or unsecured websites and connections ensures protection against potential malicious risks.
Secure web gateway also provides anti-malware scanning. SWG monitors Internet traffic and scans data for potentially malicious code. If it detects malicious code from known malware, it blocks the data access. Additionally, a secure web gateway can inspect HTTPS traffic by decrypting to scan for malware and encrypting it again. By doing this inspection, it can prevent malware and viruses encrypted with HTTPS.
Since secure web gateways work on an application level, they can control application access. Meaning that it can control the resources that applications use, and the users accessing applications. With the application control feature of SWG, administrators can monitor, detect, and restrict web application usage and access by creating security policies.
Although not every SWG solution offers data loss prevention, it is still one of the most effective ways to secure the network against data breaches. Data loss prevention (DLP) blocks confidential data from leaving the network and leaking.
Aside from essential features, secure web gateways can deploy many other benefits for cybersecurity. IP masking and dedicated IPs for your corporation are among all of the benefits it offers. With IP masking, SWP hides all users’ locations since it is a control point for the entire traffic. Dedicated IPs allow users to manage their activity through individual IPs. In other words, their data traffic will only be sent uniquely while maintaining digital privacy since only the users work with the company’s dedicated IP.
Secure web gateway working principles are the same whether they run on proxy servers or they are software-based. SWG is a checkpoint for data traffic. It operates when client requests will be sent to a website or IoT application. When an endpoint sends a request, it travels to SWG to be inspected. If the request is deemed appropriate to the set of company security policies, then a secure web gateway allows the traffic. If a violation of security policies is detected, SWG blocks the request. Secure web gateway inspects all incoming and outgoing data to ensure network security and protect the users. It can prevent sensitive data from leaving the network, and malicious actors from entering.
Proxy servers, which secure web gateways run on, might be a physical server or virtual cloud service. These servers serve as IoT devices that work in the client device’s favor. They send requests and receive responses while acting as a medium for clients. Software-based security web gateways operate both on-site and in the cloud. It can be used as a SaaS (Security-as-a-service) application. Also, on-premise applications of SWG can be utilized as physical hardware.
SWGs enforce security policies by executing various actions on the network traffic. The versatility of secure web gateways enables corporations to manage the security of their workforce, especially remotely. Since it doesn’t require direct control of remote employees’ devices or networks, companies can deploy a secure web gateway controlling access to secure the corporate networks against potential cyber threats and data breaches.
The Internet and IoT technologies are home to diverse and advanced cyber risks. Nowadays, businesses rely more and more on cloud services. So, the remote workforce is vulnerable to numerous cyber threats in the cloud environment and the Internet. Users often disconnect from corporate VPN when accessing cloud applications and IoT. Since employees face many risks, the network must be secured with another security solution.
Businesses might not directly control their employee’s devices on the corporate network. That’s why implementing a secure web gateway is important to manage web access on the network. A secure web gateway prevents cyber threats, data breaches, and a diversity of known and unknown web-based risks. SWG ensures network protection against potential threats anywhere and everywhere. Whether it is a malicious website, malware, or an unsecured application, SWG ensures to restrict access and block it.
Cyber attacks have gotten more advanced and dynamic in bypassing browser controls. With the recent developments, outdated infrastructure provides inadequate security across the network perimeter. Nowadays, malicious actors hide their traffic through HTTPS encryption. SWG ensures a detailed inspection of Internet traffic to prevent unnoticed threats with safe channels by enforcing company policies. They provide malware scanning and HTTPS inspection.
Cyber threats’ development is inevitable and so should our cybersecurity solutions. If we want to get ahead of today’s threats, cybersecurity teams must change the way to protect corporate networks against malicious actors. Secure web gateway solutions offer various features for security, and we can improve them even more.
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