What are the 4 Pillars of CASB?

CASB solutions operate based on 4 key pillars: Compliance, Visibility, Data Security, and Threat Detection. In this blog, we will explain each of these pillars with examples.

Compliance

One of the main reasons businesses choose Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) is for compliance. Compliance with CASB means making sure your company, along with all its apps, resources, and data, follows security rules set by industry standards like HIPAA, PCI DSS, FISMA, FEDRAMP, and ITAR. By keeping your business compliant, you can focus on other tasks without worrying about breaking security policies, thanks to CASB solutions.

Example:

Let's say Ryan installs a third-party app on his laptop to help with his daily tasks and automate repetitive processes. When he tries to access certain data folders on the app, CASB compliance policies detect that the app doesn't meet those compliance requirements. As a result, the CASB solution blocks the app from connecting with the cloud apps. This way, Ryan knows that the app he installed is not safe and could be a threat to his company. CASB compliance ensures that all users and their apps always follow the company's security policies.

Visibility

As a business owner, you need to know who is accessing your company data and need to keep it secure. You can deploy the toughest firewalls available on the market, but what you can’t secure is your data from a threat by an internal authorized user or an installed application.

This is where CASB security helps overcome Shadow IT practices and more. You can monitor user activity and gather information on suspicious activity, find all access requests to your data stored on the cloud, and get detailed insights and reports for your SOC team to find points of potential data leaks.

(Click here to learn more about Shadow IT)

Example:

Imagine Ryan, a team leader at your organization who has several employees working under him. Now, in case one of the employees tries to access cloud data they shouldn't, the CASB integration will alert Ryan. Ryan can then review this employee's past behavior to see if they have violated security rules before.

Based on this, Ryan can decide whether to revoke the employee's access entirely. This is how a CASB helps detect risky behavior and reports it to both Ryan and the security team, helping to reduce security risks by providing clear insights.

Data Protection

CASB is a special tool for keeping your business information safe on cloud apps. For example, with Google CASB solutions, you can make specific rules about who can access your Google Workspace apps. Only the right people can get in, and you can control access based on things like location and device in use.

Additionally, you can configure granular access permissions for entire user groups as well as set adaptive restriction policies for air-tight security based on the network IP and time-based restrictions.

Example:

Ryan is now an IT security analyst working with the company’s SOC team to protect the company data stored on the cloud apps. One day, he gets an alert saying some data on one of the cloud storage services might not be safe. Ryan checks it out on the CASB dashboard and sees that the security isn't strong enough. So, he makes security tighter by adding stronger policies for people to prove who they are. He also turns on encryption temporarily to make sure nobody can get into the data without permission. This is how CASB helps keep our important information safe.

Threat Detection

Every business, regardless of its size, is now facing a growing threat of malware attacks, especially the ever-evolving ransomware virus. If ransomware gets unauthorized access to your cloud data, it can delete all backup files and encrypt the data in the source path. Ransomware is really hard to get rid of, and fixing the mess it makes takes a lot of time and effort.

To secure yourself against these attacks, you need to detect them before they cause trouble. This is where CASB solutions help. Built with advanced machine learning algorithms, it can detect risky application behavior. It can find areas of potential risk and application surface areas prone to malware attacks.

Example:

Ryan notices that there is an abnormal surge in traffic from a cloud application. With the CASB’s advanced threat detection capabilities, he can figure out patterns of suspicious behavior originating from the cloud app.

With real-time alerts and detailed reports from the CASB, Ryan can quickly assess the threat’s potential impact and take immediate action to mitigate this risk. The CASB’s analytics and reporting feature also enables proactive threat detection, allowing Ryan to safeguard the organization’s cloud environment from potential breaches and unauthorized data access.

In Summary

CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) can help you keep your cloud data safe. It helps you control who can access your data and sets up security rules in a very detailed way. We saw the 4 pillars of CASB security, i.e., compliance, visibility, data protection, and threat detection. All of these parts are important for making sure your business data stays safe.

If you're looking for a CASB solution, miniOrange is a great choice. More than 18,000 people around the world use miniOrange to keep their data secure and make their work easier. Our customer service is known worldwide for being fast and helpful.

If you need help with CASB, just email us at info@xecurify.com, and we'll get back to you right away.