introduction
Moving to the cloud increases flexibility for employees and IT teams. 🙂
BUT,,,
it also introduces new challenges and complexities for keeping your organization secure. 🙁
SO,,,
To get the full benefit of cloud apps and services, an IT team must find the right balance of
- supporting access
- while protecting critical data.
the Solution is Cloud App Security Broker,,,
Cloud App Security Broker CASB is used to address the balance by adding safeguards to your organization’s that use cloud services by enforcing your enterprise security policies.
CASB act a gatekeeper to broker access in real time between your enterprise users and cloud resources they use, >> wherever your users are located and regardless of the device they are using.
CASB do this by :
- discovering your apps
- providing visibility into Shadow IT and app use,
- monitoring user activities for anomalous behaviors,
- controlling access to your resources,
- providing the ability to classify and prevent sensitive information leak,
- protecting against malicious actors, and assessing the compliance of cloud services.
Most cloud providers have their own CASB and microsoft is NOT exception
Microsoft has it’s own CASB called Microsoft Cloud App Security
Microsoft CAS
in july 2015 Microsoft entered the CASB market with the acquisition of Adallom and become Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS)
please check here
Microsoft CAS functionalities
you may ask that question : what can CAS do for my organization ?
good question
and the answer is MCAS has Many of functionalities including BUT limited to :
Discover and control the use of Shadow IT
- Shadow IT simply meaning : the use of information technology systems, devices, software, applications, and services without explicit IT department approval.
- It has grown exponentially in recent years with the adoption of cloud-based applications and services.
MCAS Identify the cloud apps, IaaS, and PaaS services used by your organization. Investigate usage patterns, assess the risk levels and business readiness of more than 16,000 SaaS apps against more than 80 risks
MCAS Start managing them to ensure security and compliance.
Protect your sensitive information anywhere in the cloud
MCAS Understand, classify, and protect the exposure of sensitive information
Protect against cyberthreats and anomalies
MCAS Detect unusual behavior across cloud apps to identify ransomware, compromised users or rogue applications, analyze high-risk usage and remediate automatically to limit the risk to your organization.
Assess the compliance of your cloud apps
MCAS Assess if your cloud apps meet compliance requirements including regulatory compliance and industry standards.
MCAS also Prevent data leaks to non-compliant apps, and limit access to regulated data.
how MCAS works ?
Cloud App Security use the following methods :
- Using Cloud Discovery to map and identify your cloud environment and the cloud apps your organization is using.
- use Sanctioning and un-sanctioning apps in your cloud.
- Using app connectors which take advantage of many many APIs provider
- Using Conditional Access App Control protection to get real-time visibility and control over access and activities within your cloud apps.
- Helping to have continuous control by continually fine-tuning policies
you may see strange expressions above that you could hear it for first time >>
don’t worry
networks pioneers will join you through many articles to fully understand the concepts and how to use these features to provide maximum security level to your organization 🙂
conclusion
Microsoft Cloud App Security is microsoft CASB that has been developed by acquisition of Adallom in july 2015
MCAS provide the following :
- Discover and control the use of Shadow IT
- Protect your sensitive information anywhere in the cloud
- Protect against cyberthreats and anomalies
- Assess the compliance of your cloud apps
