Cybersecurity firm Fortinet Inc. today announced several enhancements to its single-vendor Secure Access Service Edge product FortiSASE that enables additional deployment flexibility and new secure access capabilities for digital resources across private applications, software as a service, and the wider internet.

The enhancements cater to the rise of hybrid workforces. A recent Fortinet survey found that 55% of workforces support hybrid working, meaning that chief information officers are tasked with securing users as they move from home to office and during travel.

Fortinet argues that consistent security for all users is nearly impossible when using solutions that aren’t integrated across on-premises and in the cloud. Added to the mix is that the more extensive and distributed the network, the more pervasive these issues can be. Providing consistent security to a global hybrid workforce on-premises and off requires a single-vendor SASE approach.

That’s where Fortinet steps in. Existing FortiGate Secure Edge integration allows Fortinet Secure software-defined wide-area network customers to benefit from the flexibility to perform security on-premises, via FortiGate, or in the cloud, via FortiSASE. The new enhancements announced today to FortiGate Secure Edge integration give teams more granular control and flexibility when performing security on-prem or in the cloud to optimize the user experience. The enhancements are said to benefit organizations with a hybrid workforce and ensure more consistent security no matter where users are located.

Secure access has also been enhanced with additional functionality to ensure secure access for users to and from the internet, privately hosted applications and SaaS applications. FortiSASE has been further enhanced with improved performance and infrastructure scalability and dedicated public IP support. The enhanced geolocation-based experience enables access to custom services based on a user’s location.

FortiSASE now offers expanded Secure SD-WAN hub connectivity to support even more extensive global hybrid networks with seamless on-premises integration, providing remote users secure access to corporate applications. For security SaaS access, FortiSASE has been enhanced with Cloud Access Security Broker innovations that expand application coverage and provide deeper control of SaaS application behavior and the ability to restrict tenants’ access control.

With the enhancements, FortiSASE provides consistent security for users anywhere, converging cloud-delivered security, including secure web gateway, universal zero-trust network access, next-generation dual-mode CASB, firewall-as-a-service and networking through Secure SD-WAN.

“In today’s work-from-anywhere world where users are on and off the network accessing distributed applications, Fortinet empowers organizations to consistently apply enterprise-grade security across all edges,” John Maddison, executive vice president of products and chief marketing officer of Fortinet, said in a statement. The “new updates to FortiSASE enhance our ability to extend FortiGuard security services across the SD-WAN edge and cloud edge.”

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