Coolest Network Security Companies

The concept of network security has evolved in the shift to distributed workforces, and so have many of the vendors that have specialized in the area. Among the giants of the traditional network security world, many of the vendors have now expanded their offerings to enable secure access service edge (SASE) deployments for customers. In SASE, which is aimed at providing secure remote access to applications, offering a next-generation firewall (NGFW) is still a key component — but just one of many.

[Related: 10 Hot SASE Companies To Watch In 2023]

When it comes to defining SASE, Gartner — whose analysts coined the term in 2019 — points to five key capabilities: SD-WAN, secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB) and zero trust network access (ZTNA), in addition to NGFW. In other words, SASE is a convergence of networking and cybersecurity that seeks to address the modern needs of organizations in the post-corporate perimeter era. Vendors that have expanded from firewall offerings to provide a full SASE platform include Check Point, Cisco, Fortinet, Juniper Networks, Palo Alto Networks and SonicWall.

At ePlus Technology, “we’re working with customers to help to understand what the future of work looks like and how to properly secure users’ traffic to applications,” said Lee Waskevich, vice president of security at Herndon, Va.-based ePlus, No. 30 on the 2022 CRN Solution Provider 500. With the arrival of multi-cloud computing and an increasing reliance on cloud-based SaaS applications, SASE “naturally lends itself to being that intermediary layer, the same way that the next-gen firewalls from before were at that perimeter,” Waskevich said. SASE becomes the new layer where “you can connect from anywhere, secure access to your applications, whether they’re on-prem or in the cloud.”

Together, the core capabilities of SASE enable “zero trust access based on the identity of the device or entity, combined with real-time context and security and compliance policies,” and can provide this secure access whether workers are in the office or working remotely, according to Gartner, which has pegged the market at growing an average growth rate of 32 percent a year to reach nearly $15 billion by 2025. In addition to improved security and compliance, SASE can boost visibility and agility for businesses while also simplifying the management of both security and network services, Gartner analysts have noted.

What follows are the 20 network security companies that made our Security 100 for 2023.