With the proliferation of cloud apps and bring-your-own-device policies, it is hard for IT teams to oversee network use. A CASB solution helps them regain control.
Choose a solution with a broad range of security functions, including UEBA, adaptive access control, static and dynamic malware detection, and more. This will ensure that your team is protected from advanced threats.
Increased Visibility
Due to the proliferation of cloud services and bring-your-own-device policies, it’s harder for IT teams to know exactly which systems are in use. This is known as shadow IT, and it’s a growing risk to corporate data. A CASB solution can help uncover shadow IT and prevent malicious activity by observing devices and analyzing behavior to identify threats.
In addition, a CASB can ensure that sensitive data is secured in the cloud. This can be done through encryption and tokenization. These security functions allow data to be scrambled so that it can’t be read unless decrypted or accessed by a person with a key. This function is particularly useful for protecting files on mobile devices.
A CASB can also classify data and find redundancies in your data so that it can be more easily managed. This helps you meet HIPAA, GDPR, PCI, and more compliance standards. This functionality also makes it easy to identify and address issues impacting your security posture.
Compliance
A CASB solution provides visibility into unsanctioned apps and devices employees use to access data on your network. It helps administrators uncover unauthorized activities like uploading sensitive data to third-party locations and discovers security vulnerabilities caused by poor access controls. CASB solutions also enable administrators to implement granular security policies that control app usage, social media, file uploads, and personal accounts. Rather than taking a sledgehammer approach and blocking services completely, CASB tools allow you to restrict app usage at the user level. Enforcing compliance with regulations can be a complex task for IT professionals, especially when using multiple cloud platforms. CASB solutions help simplify this process by integrating regulatory standards into the security policy. This helps organizations comply with regulatory standards, such as HIPAA and GDPR.
Security
The proliferation of cloud apps and bring-your-own-device policies has created a vast new data environment for IT to monitor and protect. A CASB can help organizations safeguard this data by encrypting files before they leave the organization’s network, thus protecting them from theft or ransomware.
A CASB can also detect suspicious logins and provide alerts to administrators. It can revoke access to a user’s files and devices when they leave the company or when their device is lost or stolen. In addition, a CASB can deploy file-level authentication and dynamic threat detection to block threats before they enter the network.
As an extension of your security infrastructure, a CASB can integrate with next-generation technologies like DLP and secure web gateways to form a single platform, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). This allows for unified policy enforcement, breach prevention, and the ability to stop threats from transferring between platforms. It’s an essential component of any comprehensive cybersecurity strategy for enterprises.
Automation
CASB solutions help organizations safely enable unsanctioned cloud applications and stop shadow IT while reducing the risk of security misconfigurations that can lead to data breaches. Rather than using the sledgehammer approach of blocking a service, these solutions identify atypical activity, such as unauthorized locations or an unusual increase in traffic, and automatically notify IT teams to take corrective action. CASBs can help organizations protect sensitive information in the cloud by monitoring activities and correlating logins to identify corporate credentials. Then, they can apply policies such as access control, collaboration control, DLP, and encryption to minimize the loss of valuable information.
Look for a CASB solution that supports in-line deployment via reverse proxy and cloud-to-cloud mode to detect activity and also offers native advanced security functions like threat protection, granular visibility and control, and cloud data loss prevention (CLP).
Integrations
In addition to providing visibility into cloud applications, CASBs can connect with other security tools and systems. This helps to bridge the gap between enterprise and cloud security and improves the ability to detect threats. Finding a CASB solution that integrates with the organization’s existing security infrastructure and offers built-in advanced security functions, such as data loss prevention at rest and in motion, malware protection, and granular user behavior analytics. The CASB discovery feature also improves visibility into unsanctioned apps and cloud services that may be used by employees or a third party that isn’t authorized to access the company’s data. The solution can help identify these apps and their users by detecting atypical usage patterns, such as uploading data to unknown locations. Lastly, the CASB can integrate with SSO technologies to authenticate a set of applications and reduce the number of logins for an organization. This increases security and productivity by allowing employees to use multiple applications for one session and can also help decrease cyberattacks when unauthorized users access the system.
