In this episode of the SecurityANGLE, I’m joined by Camille Campbell, Director of Product Marketing for Wireless WAN and Security for Cradlepoint (part of Ericsson).
The conversation centered on the importance of secure connectivity in 5G environments and the challenges of providing agile and persistent cellular connectivity while ensuring network security. More importantly, our discussion set the stage for Cradlepoint’s announcement today of its single-vendor Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution, NetCloud SASE, which integrates cellular-centric SD-WAN and security into a fully unified solution. More on that in a bit.
Customer Demand for Simplified Security in Dynamic, Mobile Environments is High
With the 5G and 4G/LTE Enterprise Wireless WAN market expected to reach $5.5 billion in revenue by 2027, the need for simplified, scalable, specialized SASE solutions is growing rapidly. Solutions that can provide security for the dynamic environments that are a reality of our distributed workforce today are especially attractive. Think about it: workers who need to connect from anywhere, IoT-connected vehicles (busses, ambulances, smart-cars, etc.) the massive growth in IoT-connected devices across every industry, and mission-critical first responders all need reliable wireless WAN capabilities, and they also need to have confidence that security is baked into those capabilities as attack surfaces quickly expand.
Along with demand for simplified security measures in a dynamic and mobile environment, we’re also seeing demand for cellular and satellite backup in mission-critical scenarios.
As is the case when it comes to meeting customer demand on these fronts, there are always some very real challenges when securing and managing cellular and IoT connections in a hybrid WAN environment, emphasizing the need for simplicity, robust security, and unified policies. Enterprises are also focused on protecting web browsing for enterprise remote workers, which highlights the need for a unified policy management system that can apply malware prevention and reverse browser isolation.
This conversation with Camille focused on the importance of secure connectivity in 5G environments and the challenges of providing agile and persistent cellular connectivity while ensuring network security.
Watch the video: Cradlepoint Launches NetCloud SASE to Serve and Secure Agile Enterprises
The major touchpoints Camille and I covered included:
- A brief overview of Cradlepoint and its solution offerings.
- Security Access Service Edge (SASE), the cloud architecture model that combines network and security-as-a-service functions together and delivers them as a cloud service. Cradlepoint is one of some networking and security vendors who have SASE offerings, so we explored what Cradlepoint views as its key differentiators.
- An overview of cellular optimization and discussion around why cellular backup and web security for mission-critical applications is critical. It’s important to note here that cellular is a primary connection for many customers — a lifeline, in fact, and not a backup. Think first responders, workers in remote locations, and a distributed workforce in general, so there’s little room for error.
- Cradlepoint’s 5G focuses on transitioning from non-standalone to standalone networks and we explored what that will do to help unlock advanced functionality.
- Camille unpacked some key differentiators in Cradlepoint’s micro-channel architecture, including its elimination of double encryption challenges, reduction of bandwidth usage, and improvement of performance.
- The value of an integrated management platform for wireless LAN, network, and security, and the multiple use cases it supports.
- A discussion about why we’re seeing such an increase in interest in ZTNA solutions for remote monitoring and maintenance and how this impacts and assists first responders and others. Cradlepoint routers can be used for zero-trust network deployments, and the simplicity of deployment is a key part of the Cradlepoint value prop. A full isolation profile isolates a web object, which prevents malicious content from ever reaching end-user devices.
- 5G is expected to bring an influx of IoT devices into corporate networks (thus, the increased interest in SASE). We discussed why this is happening and how networking IT teams can prepare for this.
- Simplification, in general, is a major goal today for vendors and their end-user customers. Moreover, simplifying cybersecurity for remote workers and enterprises, including policy enforcement, malware protection, and isolation, is an increasingly important area of concern. Camille shared insights on how Cradlepoint solves for this, including the importance of implementing an acceptable use policy globally (including remote workers) and using a reputation filter for high-performance malware prevention. Cradlepoint’s threat management policies with four profiles provides what I’m going to call an “easy button” for customers, protecting suspicious web objects while also protecting end users from malicious content in webmail applications.
Cradlepoint Launches NetCloud SASE Offering
As mentioned earlier, today Cradlepoint launched NetCloud SASE, its single-vendor SASE solution designed to integrate cellular-centric SD-WAN and security into a fully unified solution. This unified solution delivers both agility and security to enterprises and enables the lean IT teams that are our collective reality today to quickly provision zero-trust networks in minutes. See more from Cradlepoint on NetCloud SASE here.
Delivering simplified networking, security, and doing all in a dynamic environment makes Cradlepoint’s NetCloud SASE offering especially timely.
Some of the features of Cradlepoint’s NetCloud SASE offering include:
- Zero Trust is built in, not added on as an afterthought. NetCloud SASE combines the network creation process with security, providing the ability to build a deny-all by default zero-trust foundation. It also minimizes the attack surface and prevents lateral movement by blocking east west traffic as well as obscuring all IP addresses.
- NetCloud SASE is built with simplicity in mind: one platform, one policy engine, and users will experience a consistent, easy-to-use provisioning experience across all surfaces.
- NetCloud SASE delivers a 5G standalone slicing-ready solution, wireless WAN optimizations that boost performance and SD-WAN with intelligent bonding (and zero loss WAN), and will be especially valuable in situations when mission-critical comms are coming from work sites or vehicles.
- The solution leverages Remote Browser Isolation, which airgaps users from malicious web activity, providing a zero-trust approach to email and web security without a negative impact to the browsing experience. This protects against phishing attacks, can disarm embedded malware in attachments (CISOs rejoice!), and can help organizations protect against the leak of corporate IP.
- Unmanaged devices can often be the bane of an IT leader’s existence, and NetCloud SASE’s isolation-based security again saves the day by airgapping corporate apps from unmanaged devices, which mitigates risk.
I’m excited by the release of Cradlepoint’s NetCloud SASE solution and look forward to watching how it fares in the market. Bringing 5G to the enterprise was the impetus behind Ericsson’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Cradlepoint in 2020, and delivering simple, secure, always-on, always reliable connectivity is table stakes today — and will be even more important as 5G becomes more entrenched. I’m looking forward to having this in the wild and hearing some customer use case stories in a few months’ time.
Camille mentioned during our conversation a video tutorial the team at Cradlepoint created showing how to create a NetCloud SASE network in under six minutes. Here’s the video in case you’d like to check it out:
Find and connect with us on social:
Shelly Kramer on LinkedIn | Twitter/X Camille Campbell on LinkedIn
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