As security risks proliferate and AI emerges as a game-changer in security, security architecture needs to change.
This is according to Brett Salovy, Business Development Manager for Africa at Fortinet, who was addressing an executive briefing in Sandton, hosted by Fortinet and QBS Software Africa – a value-added distributor for Fortinet cyber security solutions.
Salovy said the traditional approach to cyber security was to procure a range of best-of-breed security solutions and ‘stitch them together’. However, modern threats made this approach inadequate.
“‘FrankenNetworks’ and ‘FrankenProducts’ are stitched-together solutions that don't magically work. There’s no integration in this approach, so we can’t easily automate and manage the environment,” he said.
In addition, traditional approaches negatively impact user experience, he added. “Users and applications now sit outside our networks, so many organisations have installed VPN clients to connect remote computers safely to a private office network. But this can result in ‘hair-pinning’ of traffic, which users hate, so they start accessing applications directly.”
However, replacing VPNs requires more than simply deploying ZTNA, he said. It demands a strategy that securely connects employees, branches, contractors and third parties without compromising user experience.
“Secure access service edge (SASE) is the future, and it’s all about architecture,” Salovy said.
“But with some SASE, there can be hidden costs, such as ‘skills tax’ in which your engineers must deploy and learn new systems, ‘support tax’ in which multiple vendors shift blame when troubleshooting is needed, and ‘endpoint tax’ in which a sprawl of endpoint security solutions slows down the machines,” he warned.
He noted that Fortinet acquisitions are based on how well products will integrate with Fortinet’s existing solutions, and that Fortinet Unified SASE is evolving to secure organisations in the new AI era in which humans are no longer the only users on the network.
Fortinet Unified SASE, built on autonomous trust, simplifies operations through a converged architecture that brings networking, security, visibility and AI-powered intelligence together in a single platform. This cloud-delivered SASE solution combines software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) networking with cloud security service edge (SSE) capabilities, zero trust network access (ZTNA), secure web gateway, cloud access security broker, cloud-based firewall protection and secure endpoint connectivity.
“When assessing SASE solutions, organisations should also look for digital experience monitoring capabilities, to ensure they have visibility and control over the user experience,” he added.
Warren Cusens, Fortinet Systems Engineer, demonstrated multiple use cases for Fortinet Unified SASE, showcasing capabilities such as endpoint security posture checks, and the features offered to admins to better manage security.
QBS Software Africa, named Fortinet's Top Performing Distributor of the Year for 2025 in Johannesburg, is a value-added distributor for Fortinet cyber security solutions, offering regional enterprise software distribution, technical support and certified training.
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