Cloud security company Zscaler Inc. today debuted Zscaler Zero Trust SASE, a single-vendor secure access service edge solution, and also announced the general availability of its Zero Trust SD-WAN solution.

The solutions are built on zero-trust architecture. That’s the cybersecurity concept centered on the principle that organizations should not automatically trust anything inside or outside their perimeters and instead must verify anything and everything trying to connect to their systems before granting access.

The new services arrive amid a report that Zscaler is angling to buy Israel-based security data fabric startup Avalor for between $250 million and $350 million, its fifth acquisition in recent years. That’s according to a report late Monday by Calcalist.

Zscaler argues that legacy network and firewall architectures introduce risk and complexity and do not entirely stop today’s advanced cyberthreats from spreading once a breach occurs. Alternatively, the company’s Zero Trust SD-WAN provides secure inbound and outbound connectivity while reducing business risk and network complexity.

The company’s approach to zero trust involves connecting every user, location and cloud through the Zero Trust Exchange Platform, extending zero trust beyond users to protect device and server traffic at branches. Zscaler also employs its adaptive artificial intelligence engine to continuously assess risk for users, devices, destinations and content, incorporating telemetry from 500 trillion daily signals and third-party risk intelligence.

With this approach, Zscaler today debuts Zero Trust SASE, which combines its AI-powered Security Service Edge platform and its Zero Trust SD-WAN solution to support a hybrid workforce spanning all locations and an organization’s remote users. Zero Trust SD-WAN secures inbound and outbound zero-trust connectivity in a single device, an approach that is said to require no overlay routing complexity, no additional firewalls and no separate policies for sites and users.

Organizations can connect their users and devices to apps through a proxy and benefit from integrated AI-powered cyberthreat and data protection capabilities, including firewall as a service, secure web gateway, cloud access security broker and data loss prevention. The platform eliminates point products, reduces cost and complexity and simplifies information technology teams’ management.

With the releases, IT teams can push granular forwarding policies for the internet, software as a service and private applications, gain centralized visibility and management and access AI-powered internet of things device discovery and classification.

“Hybrid employees expect the same seamless and secure access they would have in an office setting, whether they are at home or on the go, without having to access their applications over a slow, cumbersome VPN,” said Naresh Kumar, vice president of product management at Zscaler.

Naresh Kumar, vice president and general manager of product management at Zscaler, spoke this week with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s video studio, about the new products:

Image: Zscaler