Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

I’m not big on acronyms or buzzwords. Like many executives, my eyes glaze over when I’m being prospected with an alphabet soup of technology terms I supposedly “need” to care about. So why, then, does the title of this article include Security Service Edge (SSE), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), and Zero Trust? Despite our justified disdain for acronyms, the ideas behind these terms hold genuine importance for business leaders.

Gartner® recently predicted that “By 2025, 80% of enterprises will have adopted a strategy to unify web, cloud services and private application access from a single vendor’s security service edge (SSE) platform."* If you don't know what SSE is, you should read my colleague Sundaram Lakshaman’s breakdown of SSE and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). The gist of it is that SSE is the convergence of security technologies inside the SASE framework.

The federal government continues to make progress towards Zero Trust (ZT) adoption. On May 12, 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order 14028 to improve the nation’s cybersecurity and protect federal government networks and on January 26, 2022, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a Federal strategy to move the U.S. Government toward a Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity.

If you work in networking or security, you have probably gotten used to the acronym stew that makes up the technology industry at times. By now you have surely heard the latest buzzword and what industry analysts have coined as security service edge (SSE). SSE is essentially the consolidation of Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS), secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) delivered as a cloud service.

I am excited to share that Lookout has been named a Visionary in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Security Service Edge (SSE). We believe our strong position in the “Completeness of Vision” axis demonstrates the alignment of the Lookout Platform with the market direction. This achievement would not have been possible without the hard work and passion of the entire Lookout family who have embraced the opportunity to support our customers on their digital transformation journey.

Today we are very excited to share that Netskope has been named a Leader in the 2022 Gartner ® Magic Quadrant ™ for Security Service Edge (SSE). This Magic Quadrant for SSE* is the first such SSE analysis of its kind, and I invite you to read the full SSE report (available here) to learn how Netskope was recognized for its completeness of vision and ability to execute.

There’s a new acronym in town: SSE, which stands for Security Service Edge. If this looks mighty similar to Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), it’s because they are closely related.