Modern enterprises have a diverse portfolio of cloud-based applications. With remote work and bring-your-own-device policies, it can be challenging to maintain visibility into how corporate data is being accessed. A CASB can help organizations identify and classify their full spectrum of cloud applications and enforce granular security policies that align with business objectives and regulatory compliance.
Improved Security
With BYOD, remote work, and unsanctioned software-as-a-service (SaaS) usage — commonly known as Shadow IT – on the rise, it’s imperative that enterprise security teams gain visibility into cloud applications and their activities. CASBs provide this critical visibility by monitoring cloud applications, devices, and data to identify risky behavior. Whether an employee uploads data to an unmonitored repository or uses a leaked set of credentials to access sensitive files, the CASB’s machine learning and UEBA technology helps pinpoint anomalous activity and protect against cyber threats. The cloud access security broker enables businesses to regain control of their cloud apps by detecting and preventing these risks. When evaluating CASB vendors, look for solutions that integrate with existing security tools, such as secure web gateways, application firewalls, and data loss prevention. You also want to ensure that the CASB supports multimode deployments, allowing your organization to scale up or down as needed. Lastly, choose a solution that offers customizable settings so that you can tailor its functionality to your specific security goals. This will help reduce user resentment and encourage engagement.
Increased Compliance
According to leading analyst firms, there are four main functions that CASBs perform. These include visibility, compliance, data security, and threat protection. Visibility allows IT teams to see what cloud applications their employees use and how they are used. This can help them identify Shadow IT, determine the risk level of each sanctioned application, and alert users to unusual access behavior. It can also help them align with cloud usage policies, protect sensitive information and reduce the impact of malware and other threats in their cloud environment. Many CASB vendors provide advanced capabilities such as policy enforcement, data loss prevention, and SaaS security posture management. This can help organizations preserve cloud usage policies and comply with regulatory requirements like GDPR. They can even prevent the unauthorized sharing of sensitive information, which is common in Shadow IT environments. This is a crucial aspect of a potential solution, especially given the growth of remote work and BYOD trends. These technologies can help prevent data breaches and other compliance violations that can result in fines and lost revenue.
Reduced Risk
Modern enterprises contend with a growing amount of cloud-based data and a wide range of security policies. Traditional binary systems cannot deal with this dynamic, so using CASBs can help businesses take a more granular approach to policy enforcement. Unlike firewalls, which block access to a given cloud application, CASBs can monitor and determine whether access should be granted. They can also identify unusual usage patterns and alert security teams to threats. The ability to perform this type of analysis helps a business reduce the risk of costly data leaks. With BYOD and remote work an everyday reality, employees often transfer data to unsanctioned applications (also known as Shadow IT). A CASB can monitor and detect this activity so that it can be blocked or alerted upon. When choosing a CASB, look for one that can integrate with your secure web gateways and single sign-on (SSO) tools to provide a more comprehensive protection plan. It would be best to consider the different operating modes for CASBs—forward proxy, reverse proxy, and multimode—and how they work with your existing IDaaS and DLP tools.
Increased Efficiency
Using CASBs, enterprises see where their cloud environments use their data. This allows IT to enforce their data policies better and ensure cloud apps comply with those rules. The CASB will discover cloud applications, and once it knows what is being used, it can automatically classify these apps based on what sort of data they contain and how the data is being shared. It can then assess risk levels and apply security policy accordingly, enforcing compliance. Additionally, CASBs can detect and report unsanctioned or “shadow IT” cloud usage. When evaluating CASB vendors, it is essential to consider all of these use cases and how each vendor will address them. Look for a product that supports multimode operations and provides integrations with secure web gateways, application firewalls, data loss prevention tools, and email providers. Also, see if the product offers field-level data encryption.
Increased Collaboration
CASBs are designed to restore lost visibility and control when resources move off-premises. As a one-stop enforcement center, they consolidate multiple layers of security policy and apply them universally to every cloud app or service across all users and devices connecting to the cloud environment. CASB solutions also incorporate the threat-blocking capabilities of secure web gateways, with integration into the analytics of DLP and XDR solutions for enhanced data loss prevention (DLP). With remote work and bring-your-own-device policies increasing the number of devices in the enterprise, it is challenging to track which applications employees use on those devices. CASBs help improve visibility by tracking cloud application usage and providing reports on cloud spend. They also help IT managers create granular cloud application access policies based on location, job function, or device. When choosing a CASB, look for the right balance of features to meet your business needs. Ensure the solution integrates seamlessly with your existing cybersecurity platforms, including your data security, endpoint, perimeter, network, and threat detection and response solutions. It should be easy to deploy and use.
