The CASB enables granular access control and security policies to protect data in cloud solutions. Organizations can benefit from its ability to comply with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA.
Look for a CASB that provides visibility into sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud applications. It should also offer significant threat protection and make it easy for IT to identify and disconnect from risky cloud applications.
Endpoint Security
With remote work and BYOD blurring the line between personal and business devices, keeping endpoint security in mind is crucial. Each machine is an attack vector hackers can use to breach a secure network. A CASB helps protect these entry points by ensuring data remains encrypted when accessed from an endpoint. It prevents hackers from decrypting and stealing valuable data or using the device to launch further attacks against the organization’s infrastructure.
In addition, a CASB’s endpoint protection can help prevent security breaches by identifying threats in real-time. It is accomplished by establishing baselines for normal behavior, detecting deviations, and alerting administrators when they occur. CASB solutions typically include threat detection, which identifies external and internal threats (including ransomware) and mitigates them through a combination of static and dynamic anti-malware, machine learning, and other advanced techniques.
Another critical aspect of endpoint security is the ability to monitor the actions of all users, regardless of where they’re located in the world or which cloud services they’re accessing. It is crucial to help security teams balance protecting sensitive data and allowing employees the flexibility they need to be productive. A CASB can do this by monitoring how employees interact with cloud applications and determining which permissions should be enabled, disabled, or limited.
For example, a CASB can ensure that only approved customers see customer data in a sales application by limiting access to the app when opened on an untrusted device or for an unauthorized user. Likewise, it can identify and limit the ability to share data outside of sanctioned SaaS apps by analyzing data packets to detect risky sharing patterns.
Identity and Access Management
Security teams should monitor confidential data access, including files on the corporate network. A CASB provides complete visibility into all cloud applications and can also help detect weird activities on the web that could indicate a breach. It can also use malware detection to prevent attacks from outside and on-premise devices and apply policies such as encryption, tokenization, file upload prevention, and information rights management (IRM).
CASBs typically support Single Sign On (SSO) and Identity and Access Management (IAM) tools, so users only need to log in once to access all systems. It helps reduce the number of passwords that need to be managed and protects users from phishing, weak credentials, and social engineering. A CASB can even identify when an employee’s credentials have been compromised and alert IT to take action.
The CASB should be able to detect unauthorized cloud activity by monitoring and analyzing user behavior patterns to identify suspicious activity. For example, if an administrator is supposed to download customer data from a CRM application but instead transfers it to a storage app on their device, the CASB will raise an alert. It can then apply granular policies to prevent unauthorized transfer, such as using gateway-delivered encryption, which encrypts the data as it leaves the company’s network and requires the vendor to have essential management capability.
The CASB should also provide visibility into all data in the cloud, even on unprotected and encrypted connections. It can then apply DLP and encryption policies to any data moving into or out of the cloud, scan the cloud for unsecured information, and notify security teams if it is found.
Threat Detection
A CASB solution evaluates and sorts cloud usage to discover, classify, and block threats to ensure enterprises stay compliant. It detects unauthorized use of cloud resources and provides remediation options like granular access control that prevents downloads on unmanaged devices or application of protection labels. It also monitors, identifies, and removes malicious files from cloud applications to keep enterprise environments safe.
CASBs protect against cyber threats that target the cloud to gain entry into the enterprise network and steal data or disrupt operations. It uses encryption to protect sensitive data at rest and during transit to prevent unauthorized access. It also identifies misconfigurations in infrastructure configuration that are vulnerable to attack and alerts administrators for faster resolution.
Recognizing and responding quickly to malware attacks is essential for adequate multi-cloud security. The CASB analyzes threat alerts to identify attack patterns and enables security teams to set alert thresholds to optimize their detection capabilities. Its machine-learning capabilities automate threat response and would allow users to work safely.
Employees can accidentally upload or share data to unsanctioned applications and devices during business. It can result in data loss, such as trade secrets, engineering designs, or other confidential corporate information, being shared via public links that anyone can access. Similarly, employees in remote or hybrid roles often transfer data to personal email accounts and file storage services to ease collaboration. A CASB can stop these activities by establishing a set of policies aligned with company policies.
The right CASB solution enables businesses to stop these risks without blocking sanctioned services or stifling employee productivity. The platform should allow a security team to set up flexible rules to balance collaboration with safety, allowing them to configure and manage access at a granular level to eliminate blind spots and weed out risky behavior.
Analytics
With more and more business data moving to the cloud, CASBs help organizations gain visibility into their entire enterprise environment. They allow IT teams to monitor user access to cloud applications and SaaS deployments, even unsanctioned software-as-a-service usage, also known as Shadow IT, to ensure that data complies with enterprise data policies.
The analytics pillar of CASBs helps to monitor user behavior, detecting when files are shared externally or if employees are uploading malware to cloud environments. The intelligence from this pillar can be combined with DLP capabilities to minimize the loss of corporate information. In addition, CASBs can detect the presence of sensitive data within files and protect it by using encryption, information rights management, or tokenization.
CASBs typically operate inline as a reverse or forward proxy in the traffic path between an endpoint and a cloud service provider or between two clouds to provide deep visibility into data in motion. They can also act as an out-of-band solution for protecting data at rest in the cloud through integrations with each vendor’s application programming interfaces.
A good CASB solution will use benchmarks and continual traffic analysis to identify anomalous or suspicious user behavior. In addition, many of these solutions employ machine learning-based UEBA to detect threats and prevent malicious activity. It enables them to perform a deeper investigation of the file than static user attributes can, identifying and preventing attackers from stealing or propagating data from the organization. It can detect malware, unauthorized file sharing, phishing attacks, or other intrusions. They can also encrypt data at rest and in transit to comply with security standards. They can integrate with current identity access management, LDAP, and multi-factor authentication solutions.
Integrations
A CASB is a security service that provides visibility, access control, threat detection, and prevention for SaaS solutions used by the organization. The answer sits at the edge of the corporate cloud infrastructure (either physically deployed as a security appliance or virtualized on-premises) and inspects all traffic entering and leaving.
CASBs can be deployed as inline appliances or out-of-band solutions and integrated via APIs with the corporate cloud infrastructure and third-party software and hardware. They help organizations identify unsanctioned or shadow IT applications and assess their risk. They can also monitor unauthorized data usage by detecting behavior patterns indicative of malware or cyberattacks.
A top CASB can provide significant visibility of users and their SaaS applications, including file access and sharing, user activity and data movement, aggregation, reporting, and alerting. It should support granular user permissions that enable employees to safely utilize time-saving, productivity-enhancing cloud services without exposing sensitive company data.
The best CASB solutions offer native advanced security functions, such as encrypting data in transit or at rest to keep it secure and prevent data loss from misconfigured cloud applications. One of the key benefits of a CASB is its ability to match login credentials with an employee’s identity, thereby preventing unauthorized access. In addition, it is worth noting that this approach can provide an added layer of protection against security vulnerabilities by revoking access when an employee departs from the company or when a device goes missing or is stolen.
Lastly, the best CASBs can detect various anomalies and send a real-time alert to the security team, such as an attempt to download customer information from Salesforce at an unusual time or files uploaded to unmonitored repositories. They can also establish baselines of normal user behavior and automatically block, override, or educate based on various criteria.
