Since organizations use cloud computing for their commercial goals, data storage, and improvement of collaboration, protecting these services has become a significant concern. Current security solutions developed for premise-based environments are insufficient for today’s cloud-first world.

This has created a space for new and creative solutions to security issues and one of the most popular ones is Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB). Over the years, CASB technology has developed in order to address the current challenges that come with cloud security needs including protection of data, compliance and control of access to cloud services.

What is CASB?

CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) is one of the security technologies that provide security between Cloud Services and the users of such services. It plays a role of a security enforcer, ensuring that security policies are implemented, cloud usage is monitored and data is protected in SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. Some of the functionalities that are provided by casb solutions include DLP, encryption, threat protection, and compliance monitoring. Over the years, cloud computing has continued to grow, and thus the need for CASBs as a way of ensuring that organizations are safe while using the cloud services.

A Brief View of Cloud Security in its Early Stages

The first years of cloud computing had many obstacles and security issues were among the biggest concerns that organizations had. The old security paradigm was based on well-known concepts like firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and VPNs that were effective as long as the organization’s network was easily defended. However, the cloud brought new reality into the mix. Data and application services were not limited to the company’s data center; data and applications were distributed across numerous clouds, and thereby, conventional security paradigms were insufficient.

Since there was no specific tools for cloud security, early adopters only had basic access control and encryption that is provided by cloud service providers. Nevertheless, this approach was thereby characterized by a lack of visibility and control. It was challenging for the organizations to track users’ interactions, implement security measures and ensure that users do not access sensitive information without authorization. This in turn created a need for security that was to protect cloud environments and this marked the creation of CASB.

The Emergence of CASB

The CASB was first introduced in the market in 2012, as a new solution to the new security requirements of the cloud. At the time many companies were worried about what was called ‘shadow IT’, that is the use of cloud services by employees without the knowledge of the IT department. Shadow IT was particularly dangerous as it was not controlled by IT, and therefore avoided standard governance and security measures that would protect the data from breaches and compliance issues.

It was to overcome these challenges that CASB was introduced to give the organization an insight into cloud usage in the organization. Solutions of CASB in the early stages helped the organizations to track the usage of cloud services by the employees, the manner in which data was being accessed and whether the usage was in conformity with the organizational security policies. This increased visibility aided organizations in recognizing and managing the risks of shadow IT as well as provided the organizations with more control over data transfer in the cloud.

Evolving Functionality: From Mere Visibility to Full-Fledged Security

When cloud adoption rose, the CASB solutions also became more complex. Today’s CASB solutions come with a rich set of capabilities intended to help solve virtually any cloud security problem from data protection to threat prevention and compliance monitoring.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP): CASB solutions now have robust DLP features that can assist organizations to avoid the loss of sensitive information or improper sharing. CASB can also help organizations manage the flow of data in and out of the cloud with an aim of protecting sensitive information. It is due to this that CASB is able to set policies based on data types and therefore without the need for any manual intervention, it can block or encrypt specific type of data when specific conditions are met.

Threat Protection: As advanced threats are becoming more commonplace, today’s CASB solutions incorporate threat protection features. CASB can detect such things which are not usual as use of cloud services from another location, for instance, or downloading of big amount of data that may suggest about the stolen account. Through these anomalies, CASB enables control of data breaches and insider threats even before they can produce much loss.

Compliance Enforcement: It is therefore important to understand the issue of regulatory compliance in relation to the storage of data in the cloud. To this end, CASB solutions assist organizations in meeting various regulation requirements including the GDPR, HIPAA, and the PCI-DSS by offering insights into how data is used and enforcing policies across the cloud services. Besides, CASB provides audit-readiness reports and thus, helps organizations meet compliance requirements during the audit processes.

Final Notes

The need for CASB has been on the rise due to the development of complex cloud security threats that organizations face today especially when it comes to handling their data in the digital environment. Originally CASB was used as a visibility tool to manage shadow IT, and over time CASB has evolved into a full-fledged cloud security solution that offers data protection, threat prevention, and compliance management.

With the increasing rate of cloud deployment, CASB will continue to play a very important role in the cloud security of any organization as it tries to navigate through the various challenges that come with the integration of cloud computing into business.