Planning a robust and bulletproof security strategy in a world which has become dominated by cloud applications and technology is never easy and can inevitably cause organisations a few headaches along the way. Information can sit anywhere – whether in motion or at rest – which makes it even harder to secure sensitive information and the threat of cyber-attack. For those wanting to adapt to the ever-evolving cloud, one of the best options and the fastest growing area of cloud security is Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs).

Essentially security services which sit between end users and cloud applications, CASBs help businesses better-craft the appropriate policies so that security and compliance requirements are met. A gatekeeper of sorts, a CASB is a software tool or service which sits between an organisation’s on-premises infrastructure and a cloud provider’s infrastructure.

The CASB has four key features including visibility, compliance, data security and threat protection. Giving network administrators visibility into cloud usage within an organisation through the use of discovery tools will detect ‘shadow IT’ usage. In terms of compliance, CASBs impose controls on cloud usage to ensure compliance with specific industry regulations and can detect when cloud service usage might result in falling foul of compliance.

Data security is another feature with CASBs acting as an enforcer for corporate security policies and controlling access to sensitive data. The feature of threat protection and intelligence is another way that CASBs add security to the cloud, preventing unauthorised devices or users from having access to any corporate cloud services.

Maintaining effective security in an increasingly advanced threat environment can be overwhelming. There is a lot to think about which is why companies like Inspired Technology can help companies define, achieve and maintain effective cloud security. It comes as no surprise, then, that CASBs are likely to become the norm – Information technology research and advisory company, Gartner, predicts that by 2020, 85% of large enterprises will be using a Cloud Access Security Broker compared to only 5% in 2016.