Gartner defines the cloud access security broker (CASB) market as products and services that address security gaps in an organization’s use of cloud services.
This technology is the result of the need to secure cloud services — which are being adopted at a significantly increased rate — and access to them from users both within and outside the traditional enterprise perimeter, plus growing direct cloud-to-cloud access.
They deliver differentiated, cloud-specific capabilities generally not available as features in other security controls such as web application firewalls (WAFs), secure web gateways (SWGs) and enterprise firewalls.
CASB vendors understand that for cloud services the protection target is different: it’s still your data but processed and stored in systems that belong to someone else. CASBs provide a central location for policy and governance concurrently across multiple cloud services — for users and devices — and granular visibility into and control over user activities and sensitive data.