The big news here is likely adding patent-pending technology – Mirror Gateway – to the CloudSoc CASB solution, but the Symantec Secure Access Cloud, Web Security Service and Email Security.cloud also get enhancements.

Today, cybersecurity vendor Symantec is announcing significant enhancements across four different gateway solutions, encompassing SaaS applications, corporate applications hosted in the cloud, email and the internet. It’s a strategy designed to show what Symantec believes to be its strength in this market – the breadth of their portfolio.

“We are launching new capabilities across four existing cloud gateway products,” said Gerry Grealish, Head of Product Marketing for Cloud Network Security at Symantec. “We are deliberately highlighting these enhancements across the breadth of our portfolio, highlighting that we are unique specifically in having that breadth. That breadth story is a key one for channel partners, positioning the broader portfolio solution for enterprises.”

The most high-profile part of the announcement is likely the addition of a new patent-pending Mirror Gateway to Symantec’s CloudSOC Cloud Access Security Broker [CASB] solution for SaaS application Security. Mirror Gateway is significant because it introduces a new paradigm for providing security controls for unmanaged devices., which comes from the browser isolation technology that came with the 2017 acquisition of Fireglass.

“Mirror Gateway is a better way of handling a use case where you have unmanaged devices which need access, and where typically you have to block unmanaged device connection because of threat concerns,” Grealish said. “Our CloudSOC used reverse process technology, as our competitors in this space still do. It was the best thing available before this. The problem is that if a SaaS provider changes the IP address of applications, and Microsoft, for example, does this a lot, it’s hard to keep up. It also means there’s a limit to how many applications that can be handled. This has no limit, and it allows all the traffic for unmanaged devices to be cleared to CloudSOC.”

The second enhanced gateway is the Symantec Secure Access Cloud for IaaS application security.

“This uses the technology we acquired with Luminate Security earlier this year,” Grealish said. “It provides a software-defined perimeter approach around secure application access. This allows traffic to be scanned to enforce Data Loss Prevention [DLP] to applications both being uploaded to Secure Access Cloud, as well as content coming down from it.”

The third solution enhanced is the Web Security Service, Symantec’s cloud-delivered network security service securing employees’ web and internet access and use. It now integrates with Secure Access Cloud, which Symantec launched in February.

“This new integration lets the Web Security Service pass telemetry data to the Secure Access Cloud, so you can set policies for both solutions,” Grealish said. “This is something that users asked us to set up and make access easier. Given that Secure Access Cloud just came in in February, we had a quick turnaround to accomplish this.”

In addition, Symantec announced Web Security Service has expanded support, to now include Windows 10 and Chromebook devices.

The fourth impacted offering is Symantec Email Security.cloud, and involves the extension of the Fireglass isolation technology.

“For our email solution, what we had had before was the ability of the isolation technology to assess embedded links,” Grealish said. “It would open it in an isolation chamber, in read-only mode. What we have added now is the ability to isolate and assess suspicious email attachments in the same way.” Now the attachments as well as the embedded link can he assessed in the isolation chamber to determine that it is safe.

“These announcements are all about the breadth of the portfolio, but it’s also more than a breadth story,” Grealish concluded. “These are all meaningful integrations that make customers’ lives easier. These also increase channel partners’ ability to have meaningful conversations with customers.”