DENVER – The rise of remote and hybrid work – coupled with omnipresent cyber threats – is forcing organizations to accelerate their digital transformations with an explicit focus on securing data-intensive workloads and applications. At the same time, the time it takes for a defender to mitigate a threat translates into millions of dollars saved or lost.

Combined, this evolving landscape has led to unprecedented demand for Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) – software framework that unifies networking services and security solutions. It's also why Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) today announced two major expansions to its SASE product suite:

Partner Expansion: Versa Networks

Every customer's digital transformation journey is unique; however, their end goals are typically the same: to digitally connect people, data and applications quickly, securely and effortlessly. With that in mind, Lumen engineered a digital SASE platform and product portfolio centered around a diverse partner ecosystem that offers extensive choices and customizations. That ecosystem expanded today with the addition of Versa Networks – an industry leader whose SASE solution was ranked as the Unified SASE Market Share Leader for the second year in a row by Dell'Oro Group.

Businesses can check their SASE readiness with the Lumen SASE Assessment, then visit the Lumen® SASE Solutions with Versa website for product details.

Lumen SASE Solutions with Versa combines Lumen's expansive network and cloud platform availability with Versa's award-winning software. Companies receive enhanced control, visibility, and simplified management of network and security to deliver cloud-based applications virtually anywhere, on any device.

New Capability: Rapid Threat Defense

Stopping attacks before they reach the customer is critical, so Lumen developed Rapid Threat Defense – a proprietary capability that automatically blocks malicious traffic before it touches the customer's environment. It is available today with some solutions within the Lumen SASE portfolio, and it's offered through Lumen DDoS Mitigation Service, Lumen® Edge Protect, and Lumen Network Firewall Solutions.

The threat intelligence that powers Rapid Threat Defense comes from Black Lotus Labs – Lumen's in-house threat intelligence team. Unlike traditional intelligence feeds that are based on visibility into a customer's environment, Black Lotus Labs has the unique ability to discover, analyze and act on network-level threats on a global scale.

Read the full press release here.

Lumen