Secure Access from Small Office Locations with FortiSASE for Thin Edge
SMBs often miss the risks in small sites like home offices, sales offices, and stores. This solution brief shows how Fortinet protects these locations with AI-powered agentless security and simple cloud-based management. Download the brief to see how you can reduce risk and secure small offices more easily.
What is a thin edge location and why does it matter for security?
A thin edge location is a very small site that connects to your corporate network but typically doesn’t have dedicated on-premises security infrastructure or local IT staff. Examples include:
- Home and satellite offices
- Small sales offices
- Retail stores and shopping center kiosks with point-of-sale terminals
- Dentist offices, gyms, auto shops, and construction sites
- IoT and OT-heavy locations like those with security cameras or office printers
These locations matter because they are real entry points into your corporate environment. Users connect over Wi‑Fi, often with a mix of corporate devices, IoT, OT, and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) endpoints. Many of these devices can’t easily run security agents.
Without consistent protection, thin edge sites can become paths for malware, ransomware, and other threats to reach your data center or cloud applications. FortiSASE for Thin Edge addresses this by using FortiAP wireless access points to connect traffic from these locations directly to the nearest FortiSASE point of presence (POP). There, traffic is inspected using cloud-delivered, AI-powered security, so even very small sites can be secured in a similar way to larger campuses or branches—without needing local firewalls or on-site administrators.
How does FortiSASE secure small offices and remote sites without endpoint agents?
FortiSASE for Thin Edge is designed specifically for environments where installing endpoint agents on every device is not practical.
Here’s how it works:
1. **FortiAP at the thin edge**
You deploy FortiAP wireless access points at small offices, home offices, or other thin edge locations. These APs act as the secure on-ramp to the cloud.
2. **Traffic offload to a SASE POP**
FortiAP devices intelligently offload all traffic from the thin edge to the nearest FortiSASE point of presence (POP). This includes traffic from:
- Corporate laptops and desktops
- IoT devices (e.g., security cameras, printers)
- OT systems
- BYOD devices connecting over Wi‑Fi
3. **Cloud-delivered, AI-powered inspection**
At the POP, FortiSASE applies cloud-delivered, AI-powered security controls to all traffic. This helps protect against malware, ransomware, and zero-day threats without requiring agents on individual endpoints.
4. **Secure, agentless access**
Because security is enforced in the cloud, access from OT, IoT, and BYOD devices is protected in an agentless way. This is especially useful for:
- Devices that don’t support agents
- Contractors or power users working remotely over Wi‑Fi
The result is consistent security for all devices at thin edge locations, delivered from the cloud, with no need to install or manage endpoint agents across a diverse device mix.
What business benefits does FortiSASE for Thin Edge provide for small locations?
FortiSASE for Thin Edge is built to make securing small and remote locations more practical and cost-effective. Key benefits include:
1. **Reduced business risk**
- Provides consistent security across all locations, including very small sites.
- Helps protect against malware and ransomware entering through thin edge locations.
2. **Lower total cost of ownership (TCO)**
- Uses cloud-delivered security and management instead of dedicated on-premises firewalls at every small site.
- Avoids the need for local IT staff at remote offices.
- Reduces the need to deploy and maintain endpoint agents on every device.
3. **Fast, simplified provisioning and management**
- Supports zero-touch provisioning of FortiAP devices, so new thin edge locations can be brought online quickly.
- Offers cloud-delivered management to customize AP profiles and security policies centrally.
- Provides unified visibility into traffic and security events across all thin edge locations.
4. **Unique thin edge-focused approach**
- Uses the FortiAP embedded hardware agent to connect thin edge sites directly to FortiSASE.
- Secures all client devices at the location without requiring endpoint agents.
- Helps organizations reimagine how they extend enterprise-grade security to small offices, home offices, and other remote sites.
Overall, FortiSASE for Thin Edge gives organizations a way to extend consistent, cloud-delivered security and management to many small locations, while keeping operational overhead and costs manageable.
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