Ever since cloud computing became mainstream, especially post-pandemic, enterprise data at present no longer resides within confined corporate walls. Today, widespread cloud migration has moved corporations to embrace cloud adoption where data sprawls across public and private clouds, SaaS platforms, and remote services.
As a consequence, securing the cloud through a robust data and cloud security posture is core to ensuring uninterrupted cloud access. This is where a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) helps enterprises inject security controls that enforce your organization’s security policy in the cloud, bridging the gap between scalability and cloud security.
What is a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)?
Gartner defines Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs) as on-premises or cloud-based security policy enforcement points that are positioned between cloud service providers and users to integrate and enforce corporate security policies as cloud-based services are accessed.
CASBs combine many forms of security policy enforcement, such as user authentication, single sign-on, continuous authorization, credential mapping, device profiling, encryption, tokenization, logging, alerting, malware detection/prevention, among several others.
CASB enables organizations to better understand who is accessing Cloud resources, what information is being sent, exchanged, or stored, what is the destination of the data, and how the information is safeguarded.
How Does a CASB Work?
A CASB acts as a real-time active alert broker between users who are trying to access the cloud service and the cloud services themselves. When deployed, it monitors authorization and control policies to access cloud services. Its core aim is to ensure data access and transit remain secure, whether a user is accessing from a private or public network.
A typical CASB uses a three-step security process that provides organizations with visibility across sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud applications. This enables IT teams and other stakeholders to exercise comprehensive control over any and all enterprise data that’s stored in cloud services. At the backend, CASB engages in:
a. Cloud Discovery
The CASB identifies all cloud apps and associated personnel. This provides visibility into the cloud services that are currently being utilized across the organization. These cloud services include sanctioned (authorized by IT) and unsanctioned (not authorized and utilized by employees without formal approval). It also provides deeper insights, such as who is accessing which cloud service, user activity across cloud applications, devices from which cloud services are being accessed, etc.
b. Cloud Classification & Risk Assessment
Once cloud services are identified, each cloud application is assessed, its data is identified, and a risk factor is identified. This enables organizations to rank cloud services based on their security. It also identifies any gaps and potential vulnerabilities that might result in inadvertent data exposure.
c. Policy Enforcement
Based on the organization’s security requirements, the CASB develops a customized cloud security usage policy. After that, the CASB detects and addresses any new threats or violations.
What are the 4 Pillars of CASB Security?
A robust CASB security solution consists of four core principles that provide organizations with comprehensive cloud security. These include:
1. Visibility
At its core, a CASB solution is geared to identify shadow IT cloud services that are being utilized across the organization.
2. Data Security
Once identified, CASBs assist in safeguarding the integrity of sensitive data by preventing it from leaving company-controlled networks. Methods include data loss prevention (DLP) and access control, among several others.
3. Threat Protection
CASB analyzes user behavior and application activity, detecting anomalies in real-time. This helps prevent data breaches, cyberattacks and emerging external threats.
4. Compliance
Regulations are evolving at an unprecedented rate. Notable data privacy laws like GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, PIPEDA, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and others impose strict requirements on cloud data storage, processing, accessing, and sharing. CASBs help organizations maintain an audit trail of access and retrieval, and compliance with other regulatory requirements.
What Security Capabilities do CASBs Offer?
CASB enables IT teams to enforce their internal requirements for access control, authentication, encryption, firewalling, malware protection, monitoring, data loss prevention, and content filtering, even when the data being protected resides in external cloud-based systems. This is in addition to several other capabilities, including:
a. Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
Prevents inadvertent data exposure and unauthorized sensitive data leak from exiting the company-owned platforms.
b. Access Control
Authenticates what users can access and retrieve from authorized applications. Uses common methods like Single Sign-On (SSO) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to ensure only authorized individuals can access sensitive data.
c. Identity Verification
Adds an additional layer of security. Verifies a user's identity by authenticating several identity criteria, including a password or the presence of a tangible token.
d. Packet inspection
Conducts inspections of data entering or exiting the secure network for any abnormal patterns and malicious activity.
e. Sandboxing
Determines if code and programs are malicious by running them in a separate environment.
What are the Challenges of Using a CASB?
No security tool comes without its set of challenges. Common challenges associated with CASB include:
a. Scalability
As businesses expand and begin to handle massive volumes of data, it’s crucial that the CASB vendor is equipped with the necessary scalability capabilities to handle several cloud platforms and apps, as well as a large amount of data.
b. Limited Functionality
Not every CASB has the capacity to neutralize security risks once they are detected. A CASB without mitigation capabilities may not be very helpful to an organization.
c. Complex Integration
Organizations must ensure that their CASB will work with all of their infrastructure and systems. The CASB won't have total visibility into possible security risks and shadow IT without full integration.
How Do Organizations Implement a CASB?
Implementing a CASB involves a multi-layered approach that demands alignment with the organization’s data security policies and governance framework.
a. Assess Existing Cloud Usage
Initiate a cloud discovery activity to identify which cloud services are being utilized. This includes sanctioned cloud services and unsanctioned cloud services. Identification helps determine high-risk applications.
b. Establish a Cloud Security Policy
Before onboarding a CASB, policies must exist that ensure alignment with business objectives and regulatory requirements.
c. Opt for a CASB Architecture
A typical CASB architecture consists of 3 deployment models: API-based, proxy-based, and hybrid systems. API systems integrate directly with cloud services via APIs to inspect data at rest, monitor user activity, and apply policies. Proxy offers real-time monitoring of data-in-motion. Hybrid combines the benefits of API and proxy across multiple cloud environments.
Automate Cloud Security with Securiti
As cloud environments become more complicated and dynamic, it is crucial to automate cloud security. Securiti provides businesses more than just data security. With a unified view of all cloud apps, data, and identities, as well as continuous risk assessment and automated enforcement, teams can automatically monitor cloud security posture in real time.
This helps security teams minimize risks, ensure data security, and keep trust by using policy-driven controls, real-time monitoring, and built-in compliance automation.
Request a demo to learn more about how Securiti can help.
