Cloud access security brokers (CASBs) have become a key part of the security landscape. They provide support for visibility, compliance, data security and threat protection, while providing multiple-layers of protection.
In today’s cloud security landscape, most enterprises now operate a mix of on-premises and cloud services, supporting the need to scale and deliver key applications to internal teams and partners. Along with firewalls, VPNs and load balancers, CASBs play a key role in the chain, managing authentication and encryption across your cloud and on-premise services. Research from The State of Cloud Security in 2021 shows that one in two senior IT professionals are using a CASB.
The key benefit of CASB is visibility into the security of your data. Gone are the days of all staff working on internally-housed computers physically wired to secure and firewalled networks. In the cloud era, people work remotely on a growing range of devices and networks, creating security risks and access challenges.
A common example is users bypassing existing IT security tools by creating documents or data sources in a cloud service and directly sharing them with other workers. CASB inspects all data and its use across the business and devices, helping identify risks and enabling senior decision-makers to update policies to protect data and improve operations.
Before the existence of CASB, IT security teams were wary of letting users access any data on non-authorized devices. But in the era of BYOD and remote work, CASB provides insight into what files are being accessed by whom, and whether they’re working on corporate or personal devices, and what they do with those files.