Four Functionality Pillars in CASB is Why You Need CASB

Before the CASB era, enterprise security executives literally lack visibility into cloud infrastructure and have no insight that how their data was protected on the cloud. To counteract the security issues in the cloud faced by organizations CASB, working as a firewall addresses the security gaps in an enterprise’s use of cloud and facilitates them to extend their security control beyond their corporate perimeters.

When first emerged in the cloud market, CASBs were seen as only cloud visibility solution. Over time, its security advancement proved to be the ultimate cloud security solution for present-day enterprises.

And now according to leading analysts, by 2022, 75% of the organization will be using one of the CASB services to protect their data on the cloud.

CASBs have Matured

When emerged in 2011, CASB was only deployed to gain visibility, identifying Shadow IT but now as they are soon to mark the end to a decade, within this duration Cloud Access Security Brokers have effectively matured providing end-to-end security, precisely employing data encryption keys compliant with the enterprise keys to the data in transits and data already residing on the cloud, giving full control of data security to enterprise.

 Gartner predicts that by 2022, 60% of large enterprises will be employing CASBs, up from the 20% that were using at the end of 2018.

This increasing deployability of CASB is because of their expanded array of functionality features across four pillars of Visibility, Compliance, Threat Protection, and Data Security, CASB being the cornerstone of the enterprise security stack.

The Pillars of Functionality in CASBs

These four functionality pillars in CASB are what led the enterprise to adopt it with full surety.

Visibility

Vivid visibility of the entire enterprise cloud landscape is what organizations aim for. With the increased multi-cloud deployment, involving multiple vendors, complexes the enterprise IT infrastructure and that is what creates blind spots in the cloud environment. If you can’t see it, you can’t secure it. That is where CASB serves as a rescuer.

By overcoming the limitations like incompetence in the field of audit or logging, CASB helps you to discover Shadow IT in your corporation. Addition to which, also offers the consolidated picture of the enterprise’s landscape providing the essential details about who, when, and from where access your corporate cloud services and stored data.

CASBs deploy improvise logs on all cloud activities so everything within the cloud environment is always recorded, allowing your enterprise IT teams to permeate to gain lucid visibility of what is going under the enterprise’s nose.

With the keen insight, it helps enterprises to identify associated threat factors and lowers the response time, immediately eliminating the potential risk.

Data Security

CASB solutions are missing key parts of your enterprise data security system. They offer more privacy features like permissions management, stale data discovery, and data remediation by taking a skillful approach to heighten the enterprise’s data security, enforcing data-centric security policies through the integrated efficient toolset may involving audits, alerts, access control, collaboration control, information rights management, encryption, tokenization, and redacting file content at the field and file level in the cloud platform, eliminating and curtailing all the potential cyber risks to enterprise’s data security.

For an enterprise, the typical Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tool is inefficient in its ability to safeguard enterprise data on the cloud database. However, DLP controls are prevalent and when employed along with CASB, this sophisticated combination operates natively and in conjunction with enterprise security network via API Integration or Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP), enabling IT teams to monitor data at rest in the cloud, or in transits –to and from the cloud, within the cloud environment, or cloud to cloud.

CASB-Encryption is the most significant privacy-preserving technology that security providers can enforce to ensure the enterprise’s data integrity on the cloud. By offering an additional layer of secure logical isolation to your data, encryption not only simplifies the configuration procedures but also alleviates the chances of inadvertent exposure of sensitive data, or when exposed it is also easy just immediately delete the keys before data is used maliciously.

Threat Protection

Think of all the possible insider or cyber-threats your enterprise would be prone to in the absence of inappropriate employment of cloud security or lack of advanced security. CASB protects your enterprise’s data and application addressing all the potential threats with efficient features like SWG, anti-malware engines, or UEBA.

CASBs employs the use of User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA), the machine learning-based technology to assess employees and customers conducts and detect compromised accounts, potential risks and effortlessly remediate threats as someone intrudes to steal information, tries to exfiltrate the corporate data, or gain access by unsanctioned means to enterprise’s network.

With CASBs acting as a janitor, it protects you from the threats arising from the cloud platform like negligent insider threats, malicious activities, or privileged users via employing proficient tools like Adaptive Access Controls (AACs), Static and Dynamic Malware Analysis, or Threat Intelligence to obstruct malware conduct.

Compliance       

Compliance is an important tool that verifies that all the enterprise’s operative functionality meets all the government regulations. Not necessarily all the features or services delivered by cloud vendors are compliant or audited with government standards. However, cloud vendor must explain compliance certifications, the scopes, and limitations, vividly.

Being compliant ensures work continues disruptively. Through CASB, enterprises can identify all the loopholes, ensuring data residing on the cloud meets all compliance as per the regulations, and pinpoint if data requires any compliance certificates. From the enterprise’s end Cloud Access Security Broker help safeguarding against the sensitive data breaches as it ascertains and enforces DLP policies on important susceptible data, ensuring it maintains compliance with regulations like PHI, PCI, SOX, and HIPAA, etc.

Employ Cloud Access Security Broker

The policies of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and the facilitation of remote working are major key factors in creating hollow spaces, risking the enterprise’s data security. For this reason, the enterprise should look forward to employing CASB as it takes a granular accost to data protection and the implementation of security and compliance policies, making it feasible to securely exploit time-saving, productivity-enhancing, and cost-effective cloud services.