Insights for CISOs—Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)

Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) is a security solution that acts as a policy enforcement point between cloud service users and cloud services. The term CASB was coined over a decade ago, but today it is an essential component in any security architecture. CASB inspects the cloud application layer, so it comes as no surprise that the market has witnessed strong and rapid growth since its emergence.

CASB was originally created to address the challenge of shadow IT use. In other words, companies adopted it to gain visibility into the cloud applications and services used in the organization without explicit approval. However, CASB has evolved over the years and vendors have added many different features to their products. Besides the frequently offered functions such as Single Sign-On (SSO), credential mapping, device profiling, encryption, and tokenization, some vendors may also include next-generation Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), User Behavior Analytics (UBA), and adaptive access control, among other features. Today CASB is getting incorporated into SASE and SSE offerings.