What Security Leaders

Wa�t �r�! S�S

Starts with Simplification

| 2

What Security Leaders Want from SASE Starts with Simplification Security leaders are entering 2026 with a clear mandate to reduce operational complexity. That’s from a recent Check Point survey where security leaders said hybrid complexity was their biggest worry, while simplifying IT management was the top outcome they were looking for.

Many security leaders are looking to adapt to the new realities of modern work. Nearly every company is managing some kind of hybrid environment with remote employees, cloud and on-prem resources, and SaaS—not to mention AI services now touching every aspect of modern work.

Given the rising complexity, we wanted to discover what these security leaders were most concerned with in 2026. Check Point SASE commissioned a survey of 329 security leaders with the position of Director or higher to see how they are looking to transform their network security this year. Among those surveyed, 44 percent said SASE was partially implemented in their environment, another 28 percent said they planned to implement, and another 28 percent said SASE was fully implemented.

There is a host of network security challenges that simply didn’t exist just a few years ago. Headquarters and branch offices are no longer the focal point of activity with users distributed between the office, home, and points in between. Company applications and data are spread across data centers, SaaS, and cloud environments. Add to that, concerns about AI touching everything (security, productivity, and operations) and it’s no surprise that hybrid complexity is keeping security leaders up at night.

Hybrid environments for workers, data, and applications make the modern workplace more convenient, efficient, and effective, but they also significantly increase your attack surface. Every worker, every endpoint, and exposed IP becomes a potential target, and protecting them often translates into a thick stack of security services. But with more consoles to manage across multiple vendors, the chance of a security gap increases such as poorly monitored infrastructure, overly broad access rules, and misconfigured security platforms.

This is exactly why security leaders are moving towards simplification as their number one outcome for 2026.

The Big Worry: Hybrid Complexity

Where are you in your Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) journey?

What concerns you the most when it comes to securing your corporate network and security environments?

44%

28%

28%

Partially implemented

Fully implemented

Planning to implement

38%

31%

31%

Complexity of managing hybrid environments

Ensuring users only access what they need, when they need it

Increased security risks

| 3

The Goal: Simplification

The Perennial Problem: Secure Access

What benefit would you most like to achieve by transforming your networking and security environments?

What’s your biggest networking and security challenge?

40%

32%

29%

Simplify IT management

Improve user experience

Reduce attack surface Top Response:

Simplify IT management

40%

37%

34%

29%

Secure access to corporate resources

Lack of visibility and control on endpoints

Managing multiple security tools

When hybrid complexity leads to management complexity, you have a recipe for increased data breaches, infiltrations, and malware penetrations. Simplification doesn’t mean reducing security coverage, it means consolidating coverage as much as possible to a smaller subset of management platforms.

Simplicity leads to improved visibility and insight into the network’s security posture, whether spotted by a human or automated process such as SIEM log ingestion. That has a knock-on effect where well-designed access control becomes easier through improved visibility, while it reduces the chances of emergency downtime, and compliance problems become less likely. These topics are discussed further below but, before that, we’ll look at the persistent challenge of secure access.

With legacy VPNs still the standard in enterprise environments, secure access is a major challenge for security leaders. In a distributed, hyperconnected world, VPNs are no longer the ideal remote access solution. They were originally designed to solve the problem of remote access when networks had a clearly defined perimeter—the castle-and-moat architecture.

Today, secure access needs to be managed application-by-application based on identity and contextual clues like time of day, location, and device posture. Solving these issues is why so many companies are turning to Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) instead of VPNs for their secure access needs.

| 4

What is your main goal in transforming network security?

40%

30%

30%

Strict access control

Full network visibility

Unified management

In addition to secure access being the big challenge for network security, 40% of security leaders say deploying strict access control is their biggest goal for transforming security. Essentially, we’re talking about two sides of the same problem. Substandard secure access often leads to overly broad access control rules. When access control solutions introduce management complexity, the default answer is often everybody can access everything. But that’s a security nightmare. Without application-by-application access control, lateral movement becomes a foregone conclusion in the event of a breach. ZTNA employs the principle of least privilege, meaning users gain access only to the applications they need, not the whole network. It assumes that bad actors are already in the system and treats every access request accordingly.

What Security Leaders Want from AI What area would you most like to leverage AI to strengthen your security posture?

There are all kinds of potential benefits security leaders could realize from deploying artificial intelligence in their security environment such as automation, real-time threat detection, and accelerated response times. Yet in our survey the biggest reason for leveraging AI was to gain a better understanding of their security posture, with 42% of security leaders choosing this option. Again, this ties into the wider challenge of hybrid complexity, and security teams see AI providing an opportunity to cut through the noise.

42%

34%

23%

Gaining better visibility and insights

Real-time threat detection and prevention

Accelerating incident response and remediation

Top Response:

Top Response:

Strict access control

Gaining better visibility and insights

40%

42%

| 5

Improved Security Reduces Downtime and Operational Risk

The Elephant in the Room: Compliance

Why is improving your security posture important to your organization?

What is the biggest risk of inaction around transforming your networking and security environments?

41%

37%

22%

To reduce downtime and operational risk

To protect sensitive data and users everywhere

To gain agility and accelerate digital transformation

Security leaders view security first and foremost as a business continuity issue, as 41% chose reducing downtime and operational risk as their top reason for improving security posture. When systems go down due to an attack or vulnerability, the organization faces direct operational disruption, financial loss, reputational damage, and productivity hits.

The rest of the organization depends on the security team to help keep everything running smoothly and reliably, which extends to the second highest choice of protecting data and users. These results reinforce the need to reduce complexity. When operations are complex, control and visibility suffer, potentially leading to downtime and data breaches that result in compliance exposure.

No discussion about security is complete without considering the potential compliance implications. While compliance does not equal security, improving security controls often reduces compliance risks. In fact, 46% of respondents named compliance risk as the biggest risk of not transforming their networking and security environments. As we’ve discussed, security teams want better visibility and access controls, and both are key factors in reducing compliance risk.

The number of compliance standards that companies must meet keeps growing, including GDPR, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and more. A well‑implemented SASE framework reduces the chances of violating compliance requirements.

46%

29%

25%

Compliance risk

Malicious attacks

Sacrificing performance Top Response:

Compliance risk

46%

| 6

How Check Point SASE Helps Security Leaders Meet Their 2026 Priorities The results of our survey show one dominant theme: security leaders want simplification as hybrid environments grow more complex. Check Point SASE is built for this shift, consolidating disparate tools, improving visibility, and strengthening access controls.

Cutting Through Hybrid Complexity

Hybrid work, distributed apps, and expanding AI services are driving operational complexity. Check Point SASE unifies networking and security into one cloud-delivered platform, reducing multi‑vendor overhead and eliminating the gaps that lead to misconfigurations and inconsistent security. This directly supports the top outcome leaders identified: simplifying IT management.

Modernizing Secure Access with ZTNA

Security leaders also called out secure access and strict access control as major challenges. Check Point SASE’s integrated ZTNA replaces legacy VPN risk with identity and posture‑based, application‑level access. This stops the overly broad permissions that lead to lateral movement and helps organizations enforce least‑privilege access at scale.

AI‑Driven Visibility with MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Survey respondents want to use AI to gain better visibility into their security posture, and Check Point delivers this through two integrated capabilities: the Check Point SASE AI Copilot, which provides natural‑language insights directly in the console, and MCP (Model Context Protocol), which lets trusted AI tools retrieve real‑time SASE data—such as network status, gateway details, and application availability—through secure, read‑only access. Together, they give teams fast, consistent clarity across their hybrid environment.

Reducing Downtime and Operational Risk

The top reason leaders aim to improve security posture is reducing downtime and operational risk. Check Point SASE helps ensure continuity by consolidating controls, tightening access, and accelerating threat detection. Simplified operations lead directly to fewer disruptions and faster recovery.

Lowering Compliance Exposure

Compliance risk was the top concern for organizations that delay network security transformation. Check Point SASE reduces that exposure with consistent policies, comprehensive logging, and unified access controls—reinforcing security controls that help prevent compliance failures.

| 7

Ready to Learn More? If these survey results resonate with you, book a quick demo to learn how Check Point SASE can help you cut

through the hybrid complexity.

Worldwide Headquarters 5 Shlomo Kaplan Street, Tel Aviv 6789159, Israel | Tel: +972-3-753-4599 U.S. Headquarters 100 Oracle Parkway, Suite 800, Redwood City, CA 94065 | Tel: 1-800-429-4391 www.checkpoint.com

Button 1: