How to Choose the Right Secure Web Gateway for Your Business

A secure web gateway is a security solution that inspects and controls internet traffic. It prevents malware infections and enforces acceptable usage policies to minimize network security risks. It detects and blocks applications that may be riskier to the business. It also encrypts web content in transit to protect against cyberattacks that spy, tamper, or fiddle with data.

Defining Your Needs

A secure web gateway filters unwanted software or malware users may encounter online. They also prevent data from leaving the network and falling into the wrong hands, thus lowering the risk of a data breach. Home users, educational institutions, and government agencies can use them. They can be hardware, software, a proxy server, or a cloud service. They can detect and block harmful content such as viruses, Trojans, phishing attacks, spyware, botnets, and more. Unlike firewalls, which monitor network traffic but do not inspect data, SWGs can check for malicious code and content by examining the raw data in its original form before passing it to the user’s device. An SWG can also perform data loss prevention (DLP) by detecting patterns and keywords that may match outgoing, sensitive information such as social security numbers, credit card details, medical records, and intellectual property. This helps the organization protect itself from cyberattacks and ensure compliance with corporate governance policies. As more and more companies rely on remote workforces and utilize cloud-based services, they are at a greater risk of data breaches. This makes an SWG a crucial addition to an organization’s cybersecurity posture, especially since it can work alongside other endpoint protection programs.

Determine Your Internet Bandwidth

A secure web gateway (SWG) is a tool that monitors internet traffic entering and exiting your internal network, blocking malicious content and threats. It also blocks unauthorized SaaS apps and websites from infiltrating your systems, protecting data from being compromised. The SWG can be either cloud-based software or a hardware system on your network. It filters incoming and outgoing web traffic and checks for risks, malicious content, and URLs. This helps to prevent ransomware attacks, malware infections, and other cyber-attacks that originate on the internet. When choosing an SWG, consider your business’s peak internet usage. This includes the number of devices on your network, average monthly data usage, and how many hours per day each device will be used online. It’s best to slightly overestimate your needs so you don’t have to pay for more bandwidth than needed. A good SWG will also help you determine your business’s peak bandwidth requirements by providing insights into device usage, traffic types, and application-level data. By understanding your peak usage, you can ensure that your business’s internet will have enough capacity during busy times of the year to support all of your employees’ activities and equipment. It’s also important to note that your business’s bandwidth needs will likely change over time. This is why choosing a service provider with flexible options for expanding your network speed is a great idea.

Perform a Comparative Analysis

Secure web gateways protect networks from cyber threats such as malware and phishing by filtering internet traffic to prevent data breaches, cyber attacks, and data leaks. They can also help ensure compliance with data privacy regulations such as GDPR. In addition, they can help improve employee productivity by blocking websites and content unrelated to work tasks. Unlike traditional antivirus solutions that rely on signatures and pattern-matching, SWG solutions examine the entire packet of information to determine whether it is safe. They use various techniques, including deep packet inspection, URL filtering, threat intelligence and reputation-based analysis, encrypted packet scanning, tunneling services, and more. They then decide whether to pass the packet to its destination or block it. SWGs are used by businesses of all sizes to protect their data and systems from threats. They can be deployed as software-based solutions, as cloud-based or on-premises hardware systems. The market for cloud-based SWGs has increased as more organizations move their IT security to the cloud. However, on-premises appliances hold a significant share of the SWG market. Regardless of your preference, it is essential to compare the features and capabilities of different SWG solutions to find the right one for your business.

Make Your Decision

With cyberattacks at an all-time high and remote workforce becoming more common, having a secure web gateway is critical. It protects your organization’s internal staff from malware, ransomware, and other threats from internet traffic and malicious websites. In addition, it also helps prevent data from leaving an enterprise network by regulating outbound traffic. SWG solutions can be hardware or software deployed along the network perimeter or in a cloud. They act as a filter between your employees and the internet, providing URL filtering, web visibility, malware inspection, and web application controls. A good SWG solution should also provide a unified management console to simplify your environment, accelerate your cloud migration and eliminate the need for IPSec tunnels.

Additionally, it should be capable of performing deep SSL inspections to reveal hidden threats. This is important because decrypting SSL takes a lot of memory and processing capabilities, which can slow down the overall performance of most security solutions. A reputable, secure web gateway will have a global threat intelligence network and research teams constantly monitoring the latest attacks and trends. This will give you a more holistic approach to unraveling attacks on your organization. It will also be able to block threats in their early stages by dynamically incorporating emerging attack signatures into its pool of detection capabilities.