What is a CASB?
A CASB is cloud-hosted or on-premises software or hardware that functions as an intermediary policy enforcement point between enterprise assets (both on and off the company network) and cloud-based applications.
Organizations are increasingly turning to CASB solutions to address the risks associated with the use of cloud applications.
Why do you need a CASB?
The adoption of cloud-based applications brings increased productivity and agility for businesses. However, this also comes with the risk of shadow IT and data exfiltration. With a CASB, you get visibility into what flows in and out of your cloud applications. You also get to see and then classify the entire list of cloud applications used by employees across your organization.
Here are three common scenarios in which a CASB is useful:
An employee sends sensitive work files to their personal email account so they can work on their laptop over the weekend. The data could be easily exposed if the email account or device are compromised by bad actors due to a weak password or any misconfigurations.
An employee uploads customer data to their personal Google Drive or Box account during their final few days with the company.
An employee uploads business data to a third-party analytics SaaS application to perform better analysis. Now, imagine a breach at the unknown third-party application server or a user account compromise. The data could end up becoming public.