CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker)

Every day, your people access cloud apps—whether it’s Microsoft Office 365, Box, or Google G Suite—from all types of devices, whether in the office or remotely. If your organization is looking for a way to gain better visibility into and control over app usage and sensitive data in the cloud, consider evaluating a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) solution.

A CASB is an intermediary between users and cloud platforms that protect data in the cloud while addressing authorization and visibility concerns of corporations leveraging cloud services. Think of a CASB as a central point where all access controls and authorization rules are validated against set policies. A CASB makes it more convenient for administrators to deploy and enforce security policies. It helps businesses build security rules when their administrators are unfamiliar with providing cybersecurity in the cloud. As Gartner explains, CASBs address security gaps associated with third-party cloud services and platforms—not under your control—that process and store your data. While cloud services offer a certain level of security, cloud security is a shared responsibility. The onus is on you to protect your users, workloads, and data.

Cloud app security has become an essential component of a comprehensive enterprise defense in today’s cloud-driven world. Businesses that rely on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) can benefit the most from investing in a CASB. A recent survey by the Cloud Security Alliance found that 70% of organizations plan to have dedicated SaaS security teams in place.

The term “CASB” was first coined in 2012 when using a security broker for cloud resources became necessary. In 2013, the first CASB vendor was introduced to the market, but the introduction of Office 365 is considered the start of the CASB era. As more companies leverage cloud applications, the need for CASB increases.

In a hybrid cloud environment, data synchronizes between the cloud and on-premises resources. It provides encryption services to protect data from eavesdropping, and identity management to restrict access to resources to authorized users. These users can share documents and data with others, and organizations can obtain visibility into how documents are shared and accessed. It also provides protection from malware and malicious software that can steal data from the cloud.

Using cloud resources creates a constant connection between the on-premises network and the cloud. This connection and the point at which users connect to cloud resources must be secured. So, accessing business resources at remote workers’ fingertips requires a secure connection and authentication point.

A CASB is responsible for enforcing security policies that protect data in the cloud. The first primary protection solution includes malware prevention so that ransomware and other advanced persistent threats cannot access internal and cloud resources. The second way to protect data is by encryption, which secures data as it’s stored on a disk and traverses the network.

Malware prevention scans files and rejects suspicious data that could interrupt productivity or steal information. Encryption is a multipurpose protection. Any data that crosses the wire is subject to eavesdropping, and encryption makes it unreadable should an attacker intercept sensitive information. Encryption also protects data stored on a device, safeguarding sensitive information from theft after a user loses their corporate device.

A CASB has a three-step process:

• Discovery: The CASB scans and finds resources on the organization’s cloud infrastructure.
• Classification: After the CASB discovers all cloud resources, a risk value is assigned to each component for categorizing and assessing applications and data for sensitivity.
• Remediation: Using data classification, the organization assigns designations to apply the proper access controls on data and can subsequently take appropriate action on unauthorized requests.

• Govern usage: A CASB can be leveraged to ensure only employees utilize cloud services approved by the organization and per established procedures and policies.
• Secure data: Whether stored on a cloud-based server or transmitted across the network, CASBs encrypt and secure data to protect sensitive information against unauthorized access. In addition to security and protection, CASBs provide data discovery and data classification tools, allowing organizations to effectively identify and classify sensitive data.
• Discover and control shadow IT: Organizations can identify and track unauthorized cloud services used without team knowledge or approval, enabling the proper action to bring them under control.
• Secure non-corporate SaaS tenants: A CASB offers a powerful solution to monitor and protect access to cloud services used by non-corporate entities (contractors, vendors, or partners), ensuring that they remain compliant with the organization’s security policies.

• Control risky file sharing: Organizations can better monitor and control the sharing and distribution of sensitive files across cloud services by implementing policies like data loss prevention (DLP) and role-based access controls (RBAC) that limit access based on a user’s role.
• Remediate SaaS misconfigurations: CASBs detect and correct misconfigurations in cloud services that could leave them vulnerable to attack. This allows an organization to properly secure and configure cloud services.
• Prevent data leakage: CASBs can prevent the unauthorized exfiltration of sensitive data from the organization by, for example, implementing DLP policies and monitoring network traffic. Organizations can also deploy controls limiting users’ ability to externally share files.
• Prevent successful attacks: One of the most valuable use cases of a CASB is detecting and preventing attempted cyber-attacks on cloud services by effectively implementing security protocols and monitoring suspicious activity.

CASBs provide a range of services that improve the security and oversight of cloud-based applications and data. These technologies and solutions are essential for organizations that rely on cloud computing environments, providing critical protection against various threats. Some of the most essential services CASB vendors offer include:

Data Security

• Data loss prevention (DLP): CASBs provide DLP capabilities to prevent unauthorized users from leaking or accessing sensitive data. Data transfers can be managed to ensure compliance with information protection policies.
• Encryption and tokenization: These services protect sensitive information by converting it into unreadable formats unless authorized users decrypt it. Tokenization uses unique symbols—that retain essential information—to replace confidential data, making it unreadable to unauthorized users.

Threat Protection

• Malware detection and prevention: CASBs closely monitor cloud applications for suspicious activities and anomalies that signal a malware attack. This involves scanning malicious files and behaviors to detect and prevent malware-based threats, including ransomware and advanced persistent threats.
• Behavioral analytics: By analyzing user behavior and benchmarking normal activity, CASBs can effectively identify any deviations that may indicate a security concern. In turn, organizations can better detect insider threats, compromised accounts, or other cyber threats.

Access Control

• Authentication and authorization: By utilizing multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) technologies, CASBs ensure that only authorized users can access cloud applications.
• Granular access control: These solutions allow organizations to set detailed access policies based on user roles, device types, and locations. This ensures that users have the appropriate level of access to cloud resources.

Visibility and Compliance

• Cloud application discovery: CASBs provide visibility into the use of cloud applications within an organization, including shadow IT. This helps in identifying unauthorized applications and ensuring they comply with security policies.
• Compliance management: CASBs help organizations meet regulatory requirements by providing tools to monitor and enforce compliance with standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS. This includes generating audit reports and maintaining logs of user activities.

Integration and Automation

• Integration with existing security tools: CASBs can integrate with other security solutions like firewalls, SIEMs, and identity and access management (IAM) systems, providing a unified security posture and seamless enforcement of security policies across various environments.
• Automated responses: Organizations can benefit from automated responses to security incidents, such as blocking access, requiring additional authentication, or alerting security teams. The result is quickly diffused threats and reduced impact of security breaches.

With these comprehensive services, CASB providers help organizations secure their cloud environments and ensure reliable data protection, regulatory compliance, and threat defense.

• Visibility: Monitoring and watching resource usage provides the visibility needed to detect suspicious behavior. Administrators must be aware of all data stored on the network and the devices used to access it. A CASB enables administrators to detect suspicious access requests, uploaded malicious files, and security vulnerabilities from poor access controls. It allows administrators to train users on the best security policies for shared resources. A CASB also provides visibility into potentially unauthorized connected devices like shadow IT and discovers data administrators may have overlooked. Instead of allowing users to upload data to unauthorized locations, a CASB blocks access to third-party locations and alerts administrators of the unusual activity.
• Compliance: Compliance regulations oversee many cybersecurity factors necessary to protect cloud data. Non-compliant organizations can suffer hefty fines, so a CASB ensures that organizations have the necessary access tools and monitoring to achieve compliance. A CASB ensures that stored cloud data is encrypted to comply with the latest regulatory standards. In addition, a CASB’s visibility and cybersecurity controls help keep the organization compliant with various regulations such as HIPAA, SOX, PCI-DSS, PHI, and more.

• Data Security: Sensitive data such as customer information, intellectual property, and secrets might be stored in the cloud. The primary pillar is the security offered, including access controls, encryption, tokenized data, permission management, data discovery, and remediation. Monitoring and logging are components of a CASB’s functionality. The CASB blocks access to data based on various user attributes like IP address, browser, operating system, device, and location. By using a combination of device attributes, a CASB lowers the possibility of false positives and improves accuracy.
• Threat Protection: Along with monitoring, threat detection mitigates any suspicious activity. The threat detection pillar identifies external and internal threats, mitigates them, and sends a notification to administrators. User behavior patterns are commonly used in a CASB to identify suspicious behavior. For example, a salesperson should have access to customer data in a sales application, but the CASB raises an alert if a developer attempts to download the same data.

Security and compliance concerns with cloud apps and services are pushing more and more enterprises to implement CASB solutions. These include:

• “Shadow IT” and the proliferation of third-party apps: When CASBs first entered the scene, enterprises deployed them primarily to curb “Shadow IT” (cloud apps and services used without IT’s explicit approval). Now, enterprises also face the challenge of governing hundreds and sometimes thousands of third-party apps and scripts with OAuth permissions (which use tokens instead of passwords) to access enterprise data. These third-party apps add more features to Office 365, G Suite, Box, and other platforms. But some are poorly built or overtly malicious. And, once an OAuth token is authorized, access continues until it’s revoked. After auditing each cloud app for its security controls, like certifications, and other risks, like broad data permissions, IT teams can make informed decisions on access controls for risky cloud apps and promote “safe” cloud services.
• Cloud account compromise: Cybercriminals often access apps and data in the cloud through compromised cloud accounts. Proofpoint recently analyzed over 100,000 unauthorized logins across millions of monitored cloud accounts and found that 90% of tenants are targeted by cyber-attacks. Sixty percent of tenants have at least one compromised account in their environment. These typically begin with brute-force attacks where threat actors submit multiple user names or passwords to correctly guess user credentials to access an account. Another method is credential phishing, where attackers try to steal user passwords through socially engineered emails. Once they have the credentials, attackers leverage these cloud accounts to pose as legitimate users to get employees to wire funds to them or release corporate data. Threat actors also hijack email accounts to distribute spam and phishing emails.
• Loss of intellectual property: The risk of losing trade secrets, engineering designs, and other corporate-sensitive data is high when employees use cloud-based collaboration or messaging tools to share files and information. Employee negligence or lack of training can result in oversharing files via public links that anyone can access. Insider threats are also common. A typical example is a salesperson planning to leave the organization stealing customer records from the CRM. Enterprises can increase visibility to data handling in the cloud and improve data security by employing user-centric policies to control access to cloud services and data via CASB solutions.
• Stricter regulations and bigger fines: Organizations in virtually all sectors are finding that maintaining compliance has become a daunting task. Many regulations and industry mandates now require knowing where your data is and how it’s shared in the cloud. Violations of recent data privacy and residency regulations can result in hefty fines. For example, violators of GDPR can be fined up to 4% of worldwide annual revenue. CASBs can lighten the compliance burden and instill confidence during audits.
• Visibility into cloud usage: Whether it’s to protect data or obtain insights into how cloud services are used, a CASB provides the visibility required for security and future scaling. A CASB can help organizations plan for future resources so that performance is always maintained. It also enables administrators to review threat activities and provision security resources to mitigate attacks.

Now that you know why you need a CASB, let’s examine its capabilities. CASBs perform several key functions that surpass enterprise firewalls and web gateways:

1. Cloud app governance: CASBs govern cloud apps and services by offering a centralized view of your cloud environment, with details like who’s accessing what apps and what data, from where, and from which device. Because cloud app usage is so pervasive, CASBs catalog cloud services (including third-party OAuth apps), then rate the risk level and trustworthiness of cloud services and assign them a score. CASBs even provide automated access controls to and from cloud services based on cloud service risk scores and other parameters, such as app category and data permissions.
2. Defense against cloud threats: CASBs can help detect cloud threats by monitoring suspicious or excessive logins and sending out alerts. CASBs also use advanced anti-malware and sandbox tools to block and analyze threats. In some cases, CASB vendors rely on their global research and third-party feeds to help identify the behaviors and characteristics of current and emerging cloud-based attacks. Today’s sophisticated CASB solutions also allow you to configure policies for automated remediation of cloud threats. For preventative measures, you can configure user-centric adaptive access controls based on the user’s role (such as privileges and VIP status), the risk level associated with the login, and other contextual parameters, such as the user’s location, device hygiene, etc.
3. Securing sensitive data: Detection and removal of public and external shares of files, as well as data loss prevention (DLP), are critical components of a CASB solution. For example, CASBs enable you to set and enforce data security policies to allow users to access only certain categories of data based on their privileges. In most CASB solutions, DLP works natively and is also integrated with enterprise data protection solutions.
4. Compliance for the cloud: CASBs can help prove that you are exercising proper governance over cloud services. Through visibility, automated remediation, policy creation and enforcement, and reporting capabilities, CASBs enable you to stay compliant with industry and government regulations. These include regional mandates, like the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and industry standards and rules, like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

• Applications running on personal devices: If the organization has a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy, a CASB protects personal devices from malware without interfering with employee data privacy. Corporate data is protected, while employee data remains untouched.
• Data loss prevention: A CASB identifies sensitive data and enforces authorization policies so that users are “allowed,” “blocked,” or “limited” to corporate information. It can also encrypt data-at-rest (e.g., stored in the cloud) or in-transit (e.g., transferred across the internet).
• Block malware and ransomware: Malware and ransomware pose significant threats to data security, but a CASB blocks these applications from being installed in the environment. It also stops the flow of malware between the cloud and the on-premises network using proxies and real-time quarantine functions.
• Monitor and handle suspicious user behaviors: Static user attributes are no longer an efficient way to detect malicious activity. Instead, a CASB uses benchmarks and continual traffic data to detect attackers and block malicious file access.

• Encryption: A CASB uses encryption for data-at-rest and data-in-transit to stay compliant and secure data.
• Validate authenticated users: Identity access management and built-in collaboration with Active Directory are significant benefits of using a CASB over your own solution. Administrators can use a CASB to set up single sign-on functionality, manage multi-factor authentication, and integrate current solutions (e.g., Okta) with the organization’s cloud environment.
• Identify misconfigurations: A simple misconfiguration in the cloud can lead to a severe data breach, but a CASB monitors and discovers risky infrastructure configurations and alerts administrators. In fact, some misconfigurations can be automatically remediated.
• Stop shadow IT and unauthorized applications: Ingesting logs and monitoring for unauthorized devices and applications prevent organizations from becoming victims of a data breach from lost laptops and smartphones or when an attacker attempts to authenticate from a suspicious location.

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) are fundamental technologies that support modern cybersecurity, but they each have distinct intentions and cover different scopes.

CASBs concentrate specifically on securing cloud-based applications and services. They act as intermediaries between users and cloud security providers, offering visibility, compliance, data security, and threat protection for cloud-computing resources. CASBs are especially relevant for organizations that rely on SaaS applications.

SASE, on the other hand, covers a more comprehensive scope and framework that combines wide-area networking and security services into a single, cloud-based model. While SASE includes CASB functionality, it goes beyond cloud security to provide a broader set of capabilities, including software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), secure web gateway (SWG), firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS), and zero-trust network access (ZTNA).

The core difference lies in their scope: CASB is cloud-specific, while SASE offers a holistic approach to network security and connectivity for both cloud and on-premises resources.

CASB Integration with SASE

It’s common for CASBs to be integrated into more sophisticated SASE frameworks, enhancing the overall security posture of an organization through several features:

• Seamless security: By integrating CASB into SASE, organizations can seamlessly utilize cloud-specific security controls within the broader security and networking framework.
• Complementary functionality: Within SASE, CASB provides targeted security capabilities for cloud environments, working alongside other security services to offer comprehensive protection.
• Unified policy management: CASB policies can be centrally managed when integrated into SASE with other security policies, ensuring consistency across the entire network.
• Enhanced visibility: CASB integration provides a deeper view into cloud application usage, complementing SASE’s broader network visibility.
• Scalability: As part of a SASE solution, CASB capabilities are more easily scalable to meet growing organizational needs without requiring additional standalone deployments.

By introducing CASB into a SASE framework, organizations can utilize specialized cloud security capabilities while maintaining a unified, streamlined approach to network security and management.

As a global leader in cybersecurity, Proofpoint remains at the forefront of cloud-based security solutions for some of the most complex and attack-vulnerable industries. With the ability to seamlessly integrate with existing security tools, Proofpoint’s CASB supports a unified security posture, ensuring consistent enforcement of security policies across all cloud applications.

Proofpoint CASB provides granular visibility into your data, access controls, and ongoing threats. It provides an overall view of how data is used and gives administrators insight into risks that could create a data breach. Administrators can view suspicious authentication attempts, data loss prevention alerts, and dashboards that detail your security standing.

The CASB solution leverages advanced threat detection technologies, including behavioral analytics and anomaly detection, to identify and mitigate potential security threats. This proactive approach helps prevent malware infections, detect compromised accounts, and address insider threats before they can cause significant damage.

For more information about CASB and secure cloud solutions, contact Proofpoint.

• Cloud app discovery: Find unused or stale apps still accessible by users.
• Risk and data governance: Configure access and authorization rules.
• Activity monitoring: Obtain visibility and insights into how data is accessed and used.
• Threat prevention: Detect and mitigate threats automatically.
• Data security: Use data loss prevention to block attackers and alert administrators.
• Activity analytics: Provide visualization that helps administrators make decisions to better protect data.
• Endpoint access control: Manage mobile endpoints and monitor their data access usage.
• Remediation option: Fix issues after they occur to restore data.
• Deployment considerations: Support API-based deployment and automation of data transfers and provisioning.
• Delivery infrastructure: Reduce latency and mitigate distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

• Threat protection from malware and phishing: The CASB should identify malware risks, block them from accessing infrastructure and data, and alert administrators.
• Account management: Administrators must be able to configure the CASB to stop suspicious authentication and authorization attempts.
• Discovery of sensitive data and applications: Your selected CASB should scan and discover sensitive data, perform risk assessments, and manage access across applications and data.
• Consider performance: Integration of the CASB should not interfere with network performance or user productivity.
• Necessary certifications: Some industries require cloud providers and services to have specific certifications, including FERPA, COPPA, CSP, and more.
• Good customer support: Administrators typically need CASB help for various reasons, so the vendor should offer help even if it’s an extra cost for specific incidents.