When the CASB was first developed, its primary use case was stemming threats resulting from unsanctioned cloud usage. Today, CASBs offer many more capabilities.
When evaluating different CASB vendors, look for a solution that provides native advanced security functions such as threat protection (identifying and mitigating internal and external attacks), data loss prevention for data at rest and in transit, and built-in user behavior analytics.
Security
As organizations accelerate their formal adoption of cloud resources, they need a way to monitor activity and control access. A CASB is a solution that can help secure various applications and services. It also helps prevent shadow IT operations and mitigate malware, phishing, and account takeover. To detect cloud activity, CASB solutions can import log data from firewalls, secure web gateways, and endpoint agents. They can also use machine learning to identify anomalies and perform user and entity behavior analytics.
CASBs provide security and management capabilities, including authentication, authorization, alerts, and encryption. They can also help identify misconfigurations and stop unauthorized devices and applications from connecting to the network. CASBs also enable administrators to set granular risk-based authentication for users. They can also encrypt data from the moment it’s created until it sits at rest in the cloud.
CASBs can also monitor shared data items, ensure compliance with PII, PCI, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 regulations, and address data residency challenges in the cloud by enabling data-at-rest encryption. They also help monitor and block access to data based on device attributes, such as location, IP address, browser, and operating system. With a data loss prevention (DLP) tool, CASBs can provide visibility into sensitive content moving to and from the cloud.
Compliance
Organizations must protect sensitive information as they rely on cloud infrastructure for data storage. Traditional on-premises data loss prevention (DLP) tools are ineffective in protecting cloud data, and CASB solutions can help. These solutions track data used within a cloud environment and identify potential cyber threats. They also encrypt data at rest and in transit to prevent data leaks. They can even be deployed to monitor compliance risks and detect violations of regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, FINRA, and PCI-DSS.
The security pillars of a CASB include threat detection and mitigation, user behavior monitoring, and application visibility. They can also detect rogue and unsanctioned applications. The threat detection pillar can identify suspicious activity by analyzing static and behavioral attributes, such as phishing attacks or malware. They can also identify and mitigate threats with sandboxing, packet inspection, URL filtering, obfuscation, and anti-malware capabilities.
To find the best CASB for your organization, consider these criteria:
Automation
The best CASB security solutions are easy to configure, which reduces the administrative burden on IT. They can also automatically detect and classify data on the fly, enabling IT to monitor and mitigate threats quickly. They can even identify unauthorized IT assets and provide automated recommendations on responding. However, CASB security solutions typically must integrate with other tools for full protection. To protect the endpoint and cloud, you must purchase multiple solutions. This can significantly increase your financial investment and administrative workload.
The growing adoption of cloud applications has increased the need for CASBs, which enable enterprises to identify and manage all the apps used by employees. They can also assess the risks of each of these apps and provide IT departments with more detailed access policies for these services based on employee and device criteria. This can help reduce the risk of Shadow IT, a major security concern for many organizations.
Another use case for CASBs is to prevent internal data leaks. For example, employees may share files through cloud collaboration and messaging tools, which anyone on the Internet can access. This is a major security threat that can cost the organization millions. CASBs can prevent these leaks by monitoring the movement of data, ensuring that it is only stored where required. They can also step up authentication challenges to ensure that sensitive data doesn’t end up in the hands of cybercriminals.
Cost
CASBs are an essential tool for organizations that depend on the cloud. They enable organizations to protect data from cyber-attacks and meet regulatory compliance. In addition, they provide visibility and protection across software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service environments. They can also extend security to unmanaged devices and support secure work-from-anywhere access. The cost of a CASB can vary, depending on the features and functionality offered. For instance, a CASB that provides granular threat protection and alerts will cost more than one that monitors cloud usage. Before choosing a CASB, evaluating the vendor landscape and determining which products offer the most value is important.
Besides providing visibility to unauthorized activities, a CASB can identify risks not covered by current security policies and controls. Employees share sensitive information via public links or upload files to personal clouds. This can lead to losing valuable intellectual property, such as engineering designs and trade secrets. Fortunately, today’s sophisticated CASB solutions can detect this activity and prevent these threats by enforcing security policies on both sanctioned and unsanctioned applications.
The best CASBs provide seamless integration with core security infrastructure, including DLP, endpoint management, web security, encryption and identity-as-a-service. This allows the CASB to analyze threat patterns, monitor suspicious behavior and automatically remediate any vulnerabilities. It also supports a centralized console and automated workflows,, enabling enterprises to manage cloud-based policies easily.