In this modern era, most organizations store their data online in some cloud platform. Cloud providers offer cheap and flexible services at reasonable costs, making them a viable option and a better alternative to traditional data centers. The data stored in the cloud contains important and sensitive information such as corporate data, customer information, trade secrets, etc. Since the cloud is accessible to anyone from anywhere, it is vulnerable to many security threats, including data leakage and unauthorized access to information stored in the cloud. This makes securing cloud access an essential part of cloud security. Here comes the need for deploying CASBs.
What is a CASB?
CASB is an acronym for Cloud Access Security Broker which is cloud-based or on-premises software that is deployed between cloud providers and cloud users. It is mainly a watchdog tool that helps organizations enforce security policies via risk identification and regulatory compliance when somebody accesses the data stored in the cloud.
CASBs prevent data theft as well as stop malware & other threats that compromise the system for data infiltration, thereby increasing confidence about using cloud services. Since the effectiveness of CASBs for securing cloud access has been proven against common security issues related to accessing cloud resources, they are becoming a valuable addition to organizations’ security.
Need for CASBs
With the increasing number of data theft and leakage incidents and increasing insecurity about cloud service usage, it has become essential to use some tool(s) which can eliminate such incidents and ensure the safe usage of cloud services. CASBs work as a gatekeeper between cloud platforms and cloud users. They not only help enterprises monitor and use cloud services safely but also enforce security policies and ensure that network traffic complies with organizational regulations and security policies. CASBs play an important role in defending against evolving threats and data loss, keeping cloud environments secure.
Security Capabilities of CASBs
Unlike security features offered by other security controls (e.g., secure web gateways, WAFs, etc.), CASBs provide unique security capabilities. They provide the following security features:
- Malware detection
- Cloud governance
- Risk assessment
- Data loss prevention
- Configuration auditing
- SSO and IAM integration
- Data encryption and key management
- Threat prevention
- Provide control over native cloud features such as sharing and collaboration
- Contextual access control
How Do CASBs Work?
CASB solutions ensure the network traffic between the cloud provider and on-premises devices is in compliance with enterprise security policies. These solutions identify cloud apps in use and detect high-risk apps and users along with other key risk factors using auto-discovery. Organizations can use CASBs to enforce multiple security access controls such as device profiling and encryption. Additionally, CASBs provide services like credentials mapping during the unavailability of single sign-on (SSO), data security, data loss prevention, and threat prevention.
CASBs provide the following essential security controls to organizations for enforcing their security policies beyond their infrastructure:
- Firewalls: to detect and prevent malware from entering the corporate network.
- Authentication: to verify user credentials and allow only authorized users to access corporate resources.
- Web Application Firewalls (WAFs): to prevent malware that is created to bypass security at the application level.
- Data Loss Prevention (DLP): to stop users from transferring sensitive information outside the corporate environment.
Foundational Blocks of CASBs
A CASB solution consists of four foundational blocks that combinedly ensure cloud access security. These foundational blocks include
Visibility
Visibility plays an important role in cloud security. Apps that run on the cloud and are not known to IT teams cannot be controlled and fall outside enterprise risk, governance, and compliance processes. Attackers often exploit these apps and compromise cloud security. For effective cloud access security, organizations need visibility into cloud app usage. This means they need to know which cloud apps are used by whom, from which location, and through which devices.
A risk assessment is conducted for every cloud service in use via a cloud discovery analysis, enabling security professionals to either allow or deny access to the app. Organizations can use this information to set more granular controls, for example, providing different levels of access to data and apps depending on a person’s location, device, and job role.
Compliance
Though organizations can migrate apps and data to the cloud, they cannot offload the responsibility for compliance with applicable regulations that govern the safety and privacy of enterprise data. Failing to comply with industry regulations may attract penalties and lawsuits for organizations, making compliance an essential factor for their business.
CASBs help them to ensure cloud compliance by satisfying compliance regulations (e.g., HIPAA.) and regulatory requirements (e.g., PCI DSS, ISO 27001, etc.). By identifying high-risk areas with respect to compliance and providing useful recommendations to secure them, CASBs help organizations’ security teams to keep their cloud environments secure.
Data security
Organizations use the cloud to enable the seamless movement of data without any barriers. Since data can be accessed and moved anywhere via cloud services, it can be exploited easily. On-premises DLP solutions cannot help secure confidential data residing on the cloud. Sensitive data can be leaked by employees or third parties who have stolen credentials. Identifying such usage patterns is the key to ensuring data security.
When CASBs are used along with DLP solutions for cloud data security, security teams can gain visibility into data transfer from and to the cloud and between the clouds. Multiple factors are responsible for weakening enterprise data security, leading to data breaches. To minimize data leaks, organizations must use security features such as data loss prevention, access control, collaboration control, tokenization, information rights management, and encryption. Also, it’s essential to know the factors that cause data breaches so that you can be cautious.
Threat protection
Detecting and remediating threats coming from cloud services is not possible with traditional security controls. CASBs leverage user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) along with machine learning to identify and remediate threats when any attacker tries to gain unauthorized access or steal data.
CASBs compare the current usage pattern with the regular usage patterns to identify any anomaly. For effective threat protection, CASBs use advanced capabilities like static and dynamic malware analysis, adaptive access control, and threat intelligence to stop malware.
CASBs for Comprehensive Cloud Security
Gartner’s latest report clearly indicates CASBs as a vital component of enterprise cloud security. Even though CASBs play an important role in securing corporate cloud environments, organizations must extend the capability of CASBs by using some additional security components such as secure web gateways (SWG) and data loss prevention (DLP) solutions. Using these devices with CASBs will help them secure intellectual property and confidential corporate data across their networks.
CASB Use Cases
CASBs can be useful and helpful for organizations in securing their cloud environments when used alone as well as with other security devices. The top three use cases of CASBs are mentioned below:
Govern Cloud Usage
CASBs can be used to govern cloud usage as they provide granular control and better visibility into cloud app usage. Organizations can control cloud service usage based on service, identity, activity, data, and application. They can even define security policies based on risk or service category and select actions like alert, block, encrypt, bypass, quarantine, and coach for policy enforcement. Additionally, security teams can perform internal monitoring to check if appropriate actions are taken by CASBs against the set security policies.
The following security policies can be set using CASB solutions:
- Alerting
- Authorization
- Authentication
- Single Sign-On
- Credential Mapping
- Encryption
- Logging
- Tokenization
- Malware detection & prevention
- Device profiling
- Monitor authorized/unauthorized cloud usage
Secure Cloud Data
CASBs can protect sensitive data across all cloud services. Organizations can enhance their data loss prevention capabilities by using CASBs along with DLP solutions. Both devices can help secure cloud services effectively. Encryption, tokenization, and upload prevention can also help prevent data loss in cloud environments.
Protect Against Threats
CASBs protect cloud services against cloud-based threats (e.g., ransomware and malware) by providing full visibility into cloud services and apps. They also help organizations identify compromised accounts via anomaly detection and threat intelligence sources. CASB vendors must innovate their CASB solutions timely to stay ahead of new evolving threats.
Wrapping Up
Cloud providers provide various services and tools (e.g., IAM, firewalls, etc.) to their customers for protecting their cloud environments against cyber threats like data theft, unauthorized access, etc. Organizations can also have their own security controls (e.g., secure gateways & DLP solutions) in place to ensure better cloud security. By using CASBs, organizations can stay worry-free about cloud service usage and data security in their cloud environments.