What is a Secure Web Gateway (SWG)?

A secure web gateway (SWG) is a security solution that protects users from online threats and enforces corporate web security policies. SWGs inspect web traffic and offer capabilities such as URL filtering, threat prevention, application control, data loss prevention (DLP), and SSL/TLS inspection.

Why Secure Web Gateways are Critical in Today’s Threat Landscape

Corporate networks are rapidly evolving and a growing percentage of network traffic is HTTPS. Software as a Service (SaaS) and other cloud-based applications operate over HTTPS. As remote work and digital transformation initiatives drive increased cloud adoption, a growing percentage of corporate network traffic will remain HTTPS.

More companies are reliant on SaaS and cloud-based applications, so they should take necessary steps to protect their employees and sensitive data. HTTPS traffic is ideally suited to concealing both malicious content and attempted data exfiltration. SWGs provide the capabilities to identify and block these attacks. URL filtering, threat prevention, and DLP allow an organization to filter inbound threats and outbound data theft.

Cloud-Delivered SWGs vs. Traditional Appliances

While SWGs were traditionally delivered as physical appliances, more companies are deploying cloud-delivered SWG services. These provide various benefits over traditional, appliance-based offerings:

• Scalability: Cloud-based SWGs can take advantage of the native scalability of cloud architectures. This enables them to rapidly scale to meet demand as web usage increases. In contrast, appliance-based solutions have a built-in maximum capacity, and scaling beyond that is slow and expensive.
• Flexibility: Cloud-based SWGs are deployed within a cloud provider’s infrastructure. This makes it very easy to adjust cloud SWG coverage in response to business needs. Appliance-based solutions, on the other hand, may need physical rewiring or other more complex configuration updates to support new users. 
• User Experience: Cloud SWGs are highly scalable and often located near the cloud-based resources that users are attempting to access. This combination offers lower latency and improved performance compared to physical appliances, which may require traffic to be backhauled to the corporate network.
• Remote Worker Security: The rise of remote work means that a growing percentage of a company’s workforce operates off-site. Cloud SWGs are globally distributed and convenient for remote workers, enabling them to improve security without sacrificing performance.

As many organizations make the shift to secure access service edge (SASE), transitioning to a cloud-delivered SWG is a critical part of this process. SWG capabilities are part of the converged SASE model, requiring cloud-native SWF capabilities.

Key Considerations When Evaluating Secure Web Gateway Solutions

A SWG is a core component of an organization’s cybersecurity architecture. When selecting a SWG solution, some factors to keep in mind include:

• Security Efficacy: Web-based threats are a major issue for corporate employees and sensitive corporate data. A SWG should be effective at identifying malicious content attempting to enter the network and corporate data leaving it.
• Performance: A SWG acts as an intermediary in every corporate web connection, so any network latency or performance issues have significant impact on productivity and user experience. A SWG should offer good performance, ideally backed by cloud scalability.
• Management: Security teams are commonly overloaded, and every security solution to manage adds to their workload. A SWG should be easy to deploy and manage to improve security efficiency and avoid configuration errors that could place the company at risk.
• Integration: A SWG is only one part of an organization’s cybersecurity architecture. Integration with other security solutions is essential to manage advanced threats and to simplify the overhead associated with security management.
• Vendor Expertise: The quality of a security vendor’s products and support is determined by their knowledge and expertise in the space. Look for a solution built by a vendor who understands the online threats that users face and can help the organization build the best possible defenses against them.

Best Practices for Implementing and Managing SWGs

The effectiveness of a SWG depends on how well it is implemented and managed. Some best practices for maximizing the benefit of an organization’s SWG investment include:

• Perform PoCs: A misconfigured SWG can have a significant impact on network performance and the user experience. Performing proof of concepts (PoCs) before a full roll-out enables the organization to identify potential issues before a widespread launch.
• Define Clear Policies: A key capability of SWGs is the ability to enforce corporate security and acceptable use policies. Defining clear policies makes it easier to implement them in a SWG and for users to understand them.
• Integrate Security: Security integration improves visibility, simplifies management, enhances efficiency, and offers improved security over standalone solutions.
• Tune SSL/TLS Inspection: SSL/TLS inspection is vital for securing encrypted HTTPS traffic, but it also poses privacy and security risks. For maximum efficiency.configure inspection to detect malicious threats while protecting data privacy.
• Leverage Threat Intelligence: SWGs can filter content and block potential threats, but can only do so if they can identify them. Integrating real-time threat intelligence enables a SWG to offer improved protection against emerging and evolving threats.
• Educate Users: A SWG is designed to protect users against online threats and enforce corporate security policies. Educating employees on these policies and the role of the SWG helps to build an understanding of its benefits and improve the user experience.
• Maintain Regulatory Compliance: A SWG can play a critical role in an organization’s efforts to protect sensitive data and maintain regulatory compliance. Ensure that SWGs are deployed and configured in accordance with regulatory requirements and that they log events and other data needed for regulatory reporting.
• Perform Regular Reviews: As a company’s infrastructure demands change, so might its requirements for its SWG. Performing regular reviews helps to ensure that the SWG is meeting business needs and can identify potential performance, scalability, or security issues before they grow into a larger problem.

The Future of Secure Web Gateways

Integration is a common thread in most predictions about the future of SWGs. From a logistical perspective, integrating SWGs with the rest of an organization’s security architecture makes good sense. Fewer solutions are easier to monitor and manage, and some SWG requirements, such as SSL/TLS inspection, are shared with other network security solutions, like intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS). Integrating these solutions improves visibility and reduces redundancy and its associated performance impacts.

As SWGs evolve, they will also integrate and collaborate with other components of a corporate security infrastructure. For example, extended detection and response (XDR) solutions are designed to enhance endpoint protection by collecting data and context from multiple sources. Integration of SWG and XDR provides deeper visibility into the lifecycle of a malware infection and offers the potential for each solution to improve the other’s ability to identify novel malware campaigns.

Conclusion and Next Steps

A SWG provides crucial protection for an organization and its employees against online attacks. SWGs can filter malicious content before it reaches an organization’s systems and protect against potential exfiltration of sensitive corporate data via web traffic.

When evaluating SWG options, it’s important to consider how a SWG’s capabilities and features align with business and security needs. In most cases, the benefits provided by a cloud-delivered SWG outstrip those of traditional appliances and offer a more secure and high-performance option for an organization and its employees.

The future of SWGs is increased integration with the rest of an organization’s network security solutions. Cato SASE Cloud offers converged, cloud-native network security that incorporates a SWG platform backed by real-time threat intelligence.