What Is a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)?

Q: What is a Cloud Access Security Broker?

A Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) is the points of contact between cloud service consumers and providers that help implement security policies for cloud-based resources.

Q: What does CASB stand for?

CASB stands for Cloud Access Security Broker, the point of contact between cloud service consumers and providers that help implement security policies for cloud-based resources.

What Is a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)?

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs) are the points of contact between cloud service consumers and providers that help implement security policies for cloud-based resources. These include enforcing authentication, authorization, encryption policies, and malware detection and prevention.

Cloud applications are widely popular for businesses because they are convenient, offer valuable integrations, and can even be automated to complete specific job tasks. But 53 percent of businesses say that evolving security threats challenge their ability to prepare for attacks and integrate new technologies. Many companies seek CASB services to improve their ability to respond to attacks and bolster their cloud implementations against threats.

Responsibilities for a CASB

The responsibilities of a CASB fall under three main categories.

Data Governance

CASBs govern a company’s cloud usage with high-visibility controls and provide IT teams with policy violation reports.

Data Security

CASBs prevent data loss from cloud services and applications with the help of tokenization, encryption, and other techniques.

Threat Protection

CASBs also help companies establish transparency of organizational data and cloud services. Then, they alert cloud security teams when active threats or anomalous activity occurs to prevent attacks such as zero-day exploits, ransomware, denial of service attacks, and more.

Key Components of CASB

There are four main principles that CASBs apply to maintain cybersecurity in the cloud.

1. Visibility

CASBs improve an organization’s ability to see which apps, users, and endpoints access enterprise data no matter where they are located. It also controls access based on user identities and can block file sharing based on permissions.

2. Compliance

Due to the increasing complexity of technology, there are a variety of regulations that businesses must comply with to ensure privacy. CASBs simplify compliance by automating activity and detecting violations.

3. Cloud Security

Remote workforces and virtual machines rely on cloud infrastructure to protect sensitive data while also providing seamless access wherever necessary. CASBs expand on-premise security policies to protect cloud services, business applications, and data in motion and at rest.

4. Threat Protection

CASBs use various tools to improve data visibility and enable threat detection with monitoring and prevention tools built for the cloud. CASBs also help inform infosec teams so that they can remediate threats across the network as they happen.

Use Cases for CASBs

There are several instances where an organization might find hiring CASB to be particularly helpful, including:

Shifting to an initial cloud implementation
Developing a cloud security strategy
Implement data usage policies
Reduce shadow IT risks
Making security recommendations

CASB vs. SASE

SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) and CASB are enterprise security strategies that keep business data safe and secure. SASE combines network security with WAN capabilities, while CASB focuses on securing access to cloud applications.

CASB plays a vital role in cloud security and works well alongside a SASE implementation. The combination offers complete visibility and control over the entire network. With CASB and SASE, companies can ensure their data is secure from the edge to the cloud.

CylanceGUARD for Managed Cloud Security

Businesses large and small contend with a growing number of devices, each adding to attack surfaces. At the same time, most enterprises face a cybersecurity skill gap and resources shortages. Cybersecurity staffing is particularly troublesome for small and mid-sized businesses.

As a human-centric subscription-based 24x7x365 Managed XDR service, CylanceGUARD^® provides the expertise and support businesses need. CylanceGUARD combines the comprehensive expertise embodied by BlackBerry Cybersecurity Services with AI-based Endpoint Protection (EPP) through CylancePROTECT^®, continuous authentication and analytics through CylancePERSONA^™, and on-device threat detection and remediation through CylanceOPTICS^®. In short, CylanceGUARD provides business with the people and technology needed to protect the enterprise from the modern threat landscape.

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