Cloud-based storage is becoming much more of a standard practice across businesses and organizations. All important data can be stored within multiple online cloud environments that can be accessed by anyone from any device with authorization.
There are many cloud service platforms from well-known vendors that are commonly used by businesses and organizations such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Each of these platforms allows users to set up their own cloud environments and the vendors also offer robust security features built into the platforms. However, it is important to have a cloud security policy in place that goes beyond the built in security features, and to enforce this policy within your business or organization. Any third-party SaaS applications being used should also be protected under such a policy.
The security policy and enforcement between cloud service vendors and third-party SaaS applications, and those who use these services and applications, is known as a Cloud Access Security Broker, or CASB.
What is a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)?
A cloud access security broker (CASB) is a security policy enforcement point between the cloud service provider and cloud users that combines and inserts security measures for accessing cloud-based data. The goal of a CASB is to ensure the enforcement of security policies, integrity, and compliance requirements to protect data and minimize threats.
While some businesses and organizations implement in-house CASB solutions, they often do not have the time or skillset to successfully manage a CASB. Therefore, more are turning to IT professionals for a CASB. At PSM, we can implement and manage CASB solutions to protect your cloud environment against risks, enforce security policies, and ensure that you are in compliance with regulations and internal policies. Our professionals implement Microsoft Defender for Apps (MDA) to help secure your cloud environment.
Goals of a CASB
An effective CASB solution should provide visibility, data security, and threat protection while ensuring compliance policy adherence.
Visibility
It is important for cloud environments to have visibility but there must also be access control. A CASB can implement an access policy that is more dynamic than simply allowing or blocking users. They can allow full cloud access on approved corporate devices while limiting access on personal or unmanaged devices.
Compliance
When businesses and organizations migrate their systems and data to the cloud, they must do so in compliance with applicable standards and internal policies to ensure the protection of their data. Failure to comply with regulations can increase the likelihood of data breaches or potential fines.
A CASB solution can help ensure that your cloud environment is in compliance with the data regulations of your industry to help protect against breaches, including HIPAA and HITECH for healthcare organizations, PCI for retail, and FFIEC and FINRA for financial services.
Data Security
Cloud data loss prevention (DLP) detection mechanisms help verify users attempting to access the cloud. A CASB solution can enforce DLP policies and help identify and stop malicious activity and unauthorized users. It can also flag and investigate suspected violations to help protect from data breaches.
Threat Protection
Businesses and organizations must be able to identify and address threats from internal and external networks in real time to ensure that employees are not introducing threats into their environment. It is important for unauthorized users and compromised accounts to be detected as well to safeguard the cloud from malicious activity.
Threats can emerge from within the cloud, potentially compromising your data and operations. CASBs implement security measures to protect the cloud while identifying and mitigating risks effectively.
Main Benefits of a CASB
Safeguarding the cloud with effective security measures is important for protecting data and ensuring proper access and usage. Working with an IT professional organization to implement a CASB solution can benefit your business in the following ways:
- Govern usage: A CASB can dynamically govern usage of the cloud by allowing varying levels of access based on identity, service, activity, data, and application. They can also help you define and implement usage policies as well as actions for policy enforcement.
- Secure data: Sensitive data throughout your entire cloud environment must be protected from breaches and loss. A CASB can effectively implement enterprise DLP to help protect data within sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud services, no matter if the users are on-premises or accessing from a mobile device, web browser, mobile app, or sync client. They can further prevent data loss by implementing encryption, upload prevention, and tokenization.
- Protect against threats: Malware and ransomware are always threats to cloud environments. CASBs can implement anomaly detection to identify compromised accounts as well as anti-malware detections and machine learning to detect ransomware. A CASB vendor can also manage and refine their approach to find and address vulnerabilities and ensure your protection is up to date.
CASB Management and Services from PSM
As more businesses and organizations migrate to the cloud for their data and operations, CASB technology has incorporated additional technologies such as DLP and Next Generation Secure Web Gateways (SWG) to help protect the cloud environment. Businesses and organizations must take a multi-faceted approach to improve their cloud security posture.
Our IT professionals at PSM can help businesses and organizations across industries implement and manage CASB solutions. We first evaluate your cloud environment to form a CASB solution that helps you manage access and safeguard your data and operations from unauthorized users, data loss, and malware. We use Microsoft Defender for Apps to protect your data, and we can integrate DLP and SWG services by implementing Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Entra Internet Access.
CASB is not a one size fits all approach. We will form and implement a CASB solution that suits the unique needs of your business.
For more about our CASB and managed cloud services, contact PSM by calling (312) 940-7830.