Safety Service Edge (SSE) platforms have grow to be the go-to structure for securing hybrid work and SaaS entry. They promise centralized enforcement, simplified connectivity, and constant coverage management throughout customers and gadgets.
However there’s an issue: they cease wanting the place probably the most delicate person exercise truly occurs—the browser.
This is not a small omission. It is a structural limitation. And it is leaving organizations uncovered within the one place they can not afford to be: the final mile of person interplay.
A brand new report Reevaluating SSEs: A Technical Hole Evaluation of Final-Mile Safety analyzing gaps in SSE implementations reveals the place present architectures fall quick—and why many organizations are reevaluating how they shield person interactions contained in the browser. The findings level to a elementary visibility problem on the level of person motion.
SSEs ship worth for what they’re designed to do—implement network-level insurance policies and route visitors securely between endpoints and cloud companies. However they had been by no means constructed to watch or management what occurs contained in the browser tab, the place the true danger resides at the moment.
And that is precisely the place attackers, insiders, and information leaks thrive.
Architecturally Blind to Person Habits
SSE options depend on upstream enforcement factors—cloud-based proxies or Factors of Presence (PoPs)—to examine and route visitors. That works for coarse-grained entry management and net filtering. However as soon as a person is granted entry to an software, SSEs lose visibility.
They can not see:
- Which id the person is signed in with (private or company)
- What’s being typed right into a GenAI immediate
- Whether or not a file add is a delicate IP or a innocent PDF
- If a browser extension is silently exfiltrating credentials
- Whether or not information is transferring between two open tabs in the identical session
Briefly: as soon as the session is allowed, the enforcement ends.
That is a serious hole in a world the place work occurs in SaaS tabs, GenAI instruments, and unmanaged endpoints.
Use Circumstances SSE Cannot Deal with Alone
- GenAI Data Leakage: SSEs can block domains like chat.openai.com, however most organizations do not wish to block GenAI outright. As soon as a person will get entry, SSE has no means of seeing whether or not they paste proprietary supply code into ChatGPT—or even when they’re logged in with a company vs. private account. That is a recipe for undetected information leakage.
- Shadow SaaS and Id Misuse: Customers routinely log into SaaS instruments like Notion, Slack, or Google Drive with private identities—particularly on BYOD or hybrid gadgets. SSEs cannot differentiate based mostly on id, so private logins utilizing delicate information go unmonitored and uncontrolled.
- Browser Extension Dangers: Extensions usually request full-page entry, clipboard management, or credential storage. SSEs are blind to all of it. If a malicious extension is energetic, it may possibly bypass all upstream controls and silently seize delicate information.
- File Motion and Uploads: Whether or not it is dragging a file into Dropbox or downloading from a company app onto an unmanaged gadget, SSE options cannot implement controls as soon as the content material hits the browser. Browser tab context—who’s logged in, what account is energetic, whether or not the gadget is managed—is outdoors their scope.
Filling the Hole: Browser-Native Safety
To safe the final mile, organizations are turning to browser-native security platforms—options that function contained in the browser itself, not round it.
This contains Enterprise Browsers and Enterprise Browser Extensions, which ship:
- Visibility into copy/paste, uploads, downloads, and textual content inputs
- Account-based coverage enforcement (e.g., permit company Gmail, block private)
- Monitoring and management of browser extensions
- Actual-time danger scoring of person exercise
Critically, these controls can function even when the gadget is unmanaged or the person is distant—making them splendid for hybrid, BYOD, and distributed environments.
Increase, Do not Substitute
This is not a name to tear and change SSE. SSE stays a essential a part of the trendy security stack. However it wants assist—particularly on the person interplay layer.
Browser-native security does not compete with SSE; it enhances it. Collectively, they supply full-spectrum visibility and management—from network-level coverage to user-level enforcement.
Conclusion: Rethink the Edge Earlier than It Breaks
The browser is now the true endpoint. It is the place GenAI instruments are used, the place delicate information is dealt with, and the place tomorrow’s threats will emerge.
Here is why organizations must rethink the place their security stack begins—and ends.
Obtain the total report back to discover the gaps in at the moment’s SSE architectures and the way browser-native security can shut them.
