Exploring the World of Cloud Access Security Brokers: Understanding What They Are and How They Work

Introduction

Data security is paramount for businesses of all sizes in today’s digital landscape. With employees creating and accessing sensitive data from multiple locations and devices, the need for robust cloud-based security solutions is more pressing than ever. That’s where the cloud access security broker (CASB) comes in. As a middleman between end-users and cloud services, CASBs play a critical role in maintaining the integrity of organizational data and application software.

In this article, we’ll explore the world of CASBs, including what they are, how they work, and the benefits they provide when used as a layer of network security.

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What does a cloud access security broker do?

Cloud Access Security Brokers, or CASBs, are security tools that help organizations monitor and control their data as it moves to and from the cloud. A three-step procedure is used by cloud access security brokers (CASBs) in order to provide visibility across authorized and unauthorized apps and control over company data stored in the cloud. These three steps include discovery, classification, and remediation.

The first step in the CASB process is discovery. During this step, the CASB will identify any cloud apps that are currently in use along with the people who are associated with them. This includes both sanctioned and unsanctioned applications, providing the organization with visibility into shadow IT. The CASB analyzes user behavior and identifies patterns to provide a complete picture of cloud usage across the organization.

Once the CASB has discovered all of the cloud applications in use, it moves to the classification step. During this step, the CASB evaluates each application, determines the data included within it, and computes a risk factor. The CASB uses this information to create a baseline of risk across all cloud applications in use. This allows the organization to understand the security risks associated with each application and prioritize security efforts accordingly.

The final step in the CASB process is remediation, which involves developing a customized policy for the enterprise based on its security requirements. This policy outlines regulations for data usage, access control, and threat protection. The CASB then proceeds to identify and rectify any potential threats or breaches. This involves closely monitoring user activity, detecting any instances of data leakage, and preventing any unauthorized access attempts.

What is a CASB used for?

The Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) has become a popular choice among organizations because of its ability to address critical use cases in cloud security. These use cases include:

Govern Usage

CASB can provide granular control and visibility over cloud usage, allowing organizations to govern their cloud usage with more precision. This is particularly useful for discovering shadow IT behaviors and enforcing policies that protect against threats. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach that blocks services, CASB enables organizations to govern usage based on a variety of factors, such as identity, service, activity, application, and data. It can also define policies based on service category or risk, and choose from actions such as block, alert, bypass, encrypt, quarantine, and coach for policy enforcement. In addition, organizations can use these instances to alert their IT team for actions taken against any policy in place for internal monitoring.

Secure Data

CASB offers comprehensive protection for sensitive data across an organization's entire cloud environment. Through the use of sophisticated enterprise data loss prevention (DLP) methods, it can identify and safeguard sensitive data in authorized cloud services as well as during transmission to and from any cloud service. This protection applies regardless of whether users are located on-premises or remotely, accessing cloud services via mobile devices, web browsers, or mobile apps/sync clients. It can also prevent the loss of data through encryption, tokenization, or upload prevention.

Protect Against Threats

CASB can guard against a range of cloud-based threats, such as malware and ransomware providing full visibility of all cloud services, and uses anomaly detection and threat intelligence sources to detect threats. CASB can also use machine learning to detect ransomware and provide static and dynamic anti-malware detections. Also, it can integrate with an organization's security infrastructure through out-of-the-box integrations and workflows, ensuring that threats are quickly detected and mitigated.

What are the 4 pillars of CASB?

CASBs are typically built around four main pillars, which provide a comprehensive approach to cloud security. These pillars include:

Visibility

One of the most critical challenges that organizations face when using cloud services is the lack of visibility into the entire network. With employees accessing multiple applications across various cloud environments, any cloud usage that is outside IT's view means that enterprise data is no longer subject to the company's governance and security policies. CASB provides complete visibility into cloud application usage by monitoring traffic through both sanctioned applications and Shadow IT. This allows security administrators to determine which applications to allow access to and which ones to block, providing full visibility and control over the cloud environment.

Treat Protection

CASB protects an organization against threats related to user behavior and the use of corporate data across internal and external networks and uses machine learning to create User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) that analyze usage patterns to identify and mitigate threats in real-time. CASB also ensures that unwanted devices, users, and applications cannot access cloud services. Other threat protection measures include anti-phishing, malware detection, account takeover protection, and URL filtering.

Data Protection

Usually, data loss prevention (DLP) solutions implemented on-premises only offer protection for network, discovery, and endpoint, and do not cover cloud services' security. However, CASB collaborates with an enterprise's DLP solution to offer comprehensive protection that enables IT to detect movements of sensitive data within the cloud, and implement data-centric security policies based on data classification and controls like block, alert, audit, delete, and encrypt. CASB also supervises the access of sensitive data and privilege escalation. Along with data leak prevention, this contextual access control decides which users can access particular parts of an application and how they can manipulate the data.

Compliance

Compliance is a critical and often complicated standard for organizations to manage, especially as more data and services are moved to the cloud. CASB provides robust access control, monitoring, and DLP to assist organizations with cloud compliance. It assists in identifying important areas of compliance risk, which enables IT to assure regulatory compliance on all levels.

What is CASB vs IAM?

CASB and Identity Access Management (IAM) tools are two critical components of a comprehensive cloud security strategy. While they work together to secure cloud-based assets, they have different functions. Here are the main differences between CASB and IAM:

Scope of Security

IAM is designed to manage access to an organization's resources, such as applications, data, and services, regardless of whether they are stored on-premises or in the cloud. CASB is focused on securing cloud-based assets and services, including unsanctioned or shadow IT applications, that are beyond the scope of IAM.

Functionality

IAM is responsible for managing user identities, as well as authenticating and authorizing users, provisioning and de-provisioning users, and providing reporting via the use of techniques such as single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and adaptive authentication. CASB provides visibility into the access landscape and monitors activity across cloud-based services, alerting IAM tools when new devices appear on the network and communicating what credentials were used to gain access.

Access Management

IAM focuses on managing user access to resources within the organization, while CASB extends the reach of IAM by managing access to cloud-based resources, even if they are not owned or managed by the organization. CASB provides a single point of control for user access to cloud applications, regardless of whether the applications are accessed from within or outside the organization's network.

What is CASB vs DLP?

While both CASBs and DLP tools are essential in protecting an organization's data, they serve different purposes and address different areas of concern. Some of the key differences between CASBs and DLP are:

Scope of Resources

CASBs are primarily focused on cloud services and applications, while DLP tools address all internal data resources, including those stored in endpoints and on-premises databases.

Handling of Unsanctioned Tools

A CASB addresses the challenge of handling an organization's data used with any cloud application, including unsanctioned tools that may form a Shadow IT environment. A CASB may restrict users from transmitting business data to unauthorized cloud apps that exceed the capabilities of a DLP solution. DLP is focused on how data is used in approved business applications and cannot address the use of data resources in unapproved applications.

Data Handling Policies

CASBs play a critical role in enforcing data handling policies in the cloud. A CASB can help an organization monitor and control the flow of data to and from cloud services and applications. DLP tools are focused on monitoring and controlling the use of data within the organization's approved business applications. They can enforce data handling policies for sensitive data, such as financial data, personally identifiable information (PII), and intellectual property.

Conclusion

As increasing numbers of organizations continue to adopt cloud-based solutions, the importance of maintaining a strong security posture cannot be overstated. By leveraging CASBs and other cloud security tools, businesses can help protect themselves from external threats and mitigate risks to their IT infrastructure.

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