For digital transformation efforts to be truly successful, business leaders need to carefully factor in the ramifications for security. Yes, it’s important that businesses invest in innovative tools and solutions that will help them achieve greater levels of efficiency and productivity. However, failing to consider the implications of an unsecured technology investment can have significant negative effects on a business (and its bottom line).

Every new technology or device that is added to a business’s network increases the potential attack surface that can be exploited by cybercriminals. As such, there’s an increasing need for comprehensive cybersecurity measures to be a core component of any digital transformation strategy. And, crucially, there’s a growing need for businesses to include secure, software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) solutions in their transformation and cybersecurity strategies, especially as the adoption of hybrid and remote work environments grows.

However, not every SD-WAN solution provider is created equal. Organisations that simply select and integrate any generic SD-WAN solution on the market could be doing their business a great disservice. SD-WAN is an increasingly common solution for technology providers to offer, so it’s critical that business leaders do their due diligence and take steps to fully understand the solution on offer and whether it meets their business’s needs.

There are three key things you need to consider before engaging with an SD-WAN provider:

  1. Risk exposure and threat protection: as with any technology investment, it’s important to understand how your risk exposure will change as a result of introducing a new solution to the existing network. At the same time, while SD-WAN serves to strengthen your organisation’s security posture, it’s essential to consider in tandem the potential limitations that your SD-WAN solution has. This might include limits to the types of threats that can be detected as well as how you mitigate the potential risks.
  2. Control and visibility: the rise of remote and hybrid work environments has created a number of new challenges for businesses, as well as delivering great benefits. One of the biggest challenges is the lack of visibility. It’s essential that business leaders can ensure their SD-WAN solution will deliver the necessary level of control and visibility over their ever-expanding network.
  3. Compliance: as with any new technology or process, business leaders need to ensure their SD-WAN solution will empower the business to remain compliant with relevant industry and government regulations, while simultaneously meeting the business’s own internal compliance needs. It’s important that the selected SD-WAN solution supports all applicable regulatory requirements across both industry standards and data privacy obligations.

Identifying the right secure SD-WAN provider is important, so it’s essential that business leaders avoid cutting corners when it comes to selecting a new SD-WAN solution. Before engaging with an SD-WAN provider, business leaders should take the time to comprehensively assess potential technology solution providers against the organisation’s needs to understand if the two are aligned and will deliver a secure solution. SD-WAN helps to protect the core of your business’s infrastructure, so it’s important to make the right decision for the protection of your business.

Wavelink works with secure SD-WAN provider, Fortinet, to deliver the most secure solution possible for its customers. To find out how Wavelink, together with the support of Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN, can help you protect your business, contact the sales team today: sales@wavelink.com.au.