CASB vs. CSPM: All You Need to Know

A detailed comparison between CASB and CSPM - key features, benefits, use cases - to help you choose the right cloud-security solution for your business.

CASB or Cloud Access Security Broker, is a checkpoint between enterprise users and cloud services. It can enforce various security policies designed to ensure secure cloud usage, data security, and the security of cloud-based applications. CASB can enforce policies regarding user authentication, malware detection, encryption, access control, and more. CSPM or Cloud Security Posture Management is responsible for the security of cloud environments. It involves identifying security risks and misconfigurations, locating and managing vulnerabilities, and spotting compliance-related issues. CASB and CSPM play important roles in information security in and around cloud environments. This article focuses on the differences between CASB vs CSPM in terms of implementation, use cases, and benefits. It should help you devise an effective cloud security strategy for your enterprise.

What is a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)?

A cloud access security broker is a security policy enforcement point situated between a cloud service provider and the users of such services. Its four cornerstones are visibility, data security, threat protection, and compliance.

It functions as an intermediary between users and cloud-hosted applications that monitors and controls cloud traffic ensuring only authorized users can access the data and applications hosted on a cloud. It also safeguards against intrusions, data leaks, and unauthorized access.

A Cloud Access Security Broker utilizes different prevention, monitoring, and mitigation techniques to protect an organization. It monitors user activity, warns security administrators about anomalous activity, prevents the installation of malware, and identifies potential compliance violations.

Overall, it offers a nimble and flexible approach to cloud security that helps organizations balance data security with accessibility.

CASB has a three-layered workflow:

• Discovery: Identifying all cloud-based services in use and the people affiliated with them
• Classification: Assessing the data in all applications and finding risk factors
• Remediation: Creating and enforcing security rules to mitigate risks and prevent threats

What are the key Features of CASB?

As we mentioned earlier, a CASB has four pillars; visibility, data security, threat protection, and compliance. Each of these aspects carries some unique features that come together to create a comprehensive cloud security framework.

1. Visibility

The advent of remote and hybrid modes of work along with the proliferation of employee-owned devices within the organizational networks, has added to the challenges of visibility and control. A CASB offers a practical solution to organizations grappling with shadow IT and the risks associated with it.

• Cloud Discovery: Identifying all cloud applications in use
• Shadow IT Detection: Spotting unsanctioned cloud usage
• Usage Monitoring: Tracking cloud usage patterns to spot risks and anomalies
• Access Control: Enforcing granular access controls based on roles and permissions.

2. Data Security

CASB plays a crucial role in securing all data in a cloud environment. Data loss prevention is a core component of a CASB. It protects data and its movement into, from, and within the cloud environment.

• Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Preventing the abuse, disclosure, duplication, modification, and deletion of sensitive data by unauthorized personnel.
• Data Encryption: Encrypting data in transit and at rest.
• Information Rights Management (IRM): Establishing strict role-based access controls around sensitive data.

3. Threat Protection

A CASB can analyze the usual user behavior and usage patterns to spot anomalies within the cloud environment. With adaptive access controls, malware mitigation, and other preventive features, a CASB protects an organization from internal and external threats.

• Malware Protection: Blocking malware, ransomware, and other threats
• Anomaly Detection: Spotting unusual user behavior and potential security incidents
• Threat Intelligence: Providing real-time and updated threat information to enhance protection

4. Compliance

A CASB helps an organization monitor compliance status. It allows businesses to adhere to regulations like PCI-DSS and HIPAA by creating auditable access trails and detailed reports of a company’s security posture.

• Audit and Reporting: Detailed reports on cloud activities and security posture
• Compliance Enforcement: Helps organizations meet industry regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA).

Apart from the features discussed above, a CASB offers additional help with Mobile Application Management (MAM) and security integration.

What is Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)?

CSPM or Cloud Security Posture Management is a system that streamlines the processes of identifying and remediating risks by automating various security workflows across cloud environments. CSPM is responsible for continuous monitoring, risk assessment, prioritization, remediation, and compliance reviews. CSPM can search for misconfigurations and security gaps in different cloud environments/infrastructures like Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (Saas), and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

CSPM solutions run automatic scans for misconfigurations and prioritize the detected vulnerabilities and security loopholes in order of potential impact and criticality. Then, detailed remediation guidelines may be produced or in some cases, automated remediation workflows may be deployed.

Key Features of CSPM: A Deep Dive

Cloud security posture management is the aggregation of a range of tasks that aim to monitor and strengthen the security posture of cloud-hosted resources. Here is a breakdown of such tasks.

1. Continuous Monitoring

• Resource Inventory: Maintaining an updated inventory of cloud resources such as virtual machines (VMs), storage, and networks.
• Configuration Drift Detection: Identifying changes or modifications in cloud-resource configurations that drift from the security baselines.
• API-Based Scanning: Accurate data collection through the use of cloud provider APIs.
• Real-Time Monitoring: Continuously monitoring and reporting the security posture.

2. Risk Assessment

• Vulnerability Scoring: Assigning severity scores to the detected vulnerabilities. The scores depend on actors like CVSS score, exploitability, and impact.
• Business Impact Analysis: Projecting the potential impact of vulnerabilities on business operations.
• Threat Modeling: Finding potential attack vectors and assessing the likelihood of exploitation.

3. Vulnerability Management

• Vulnerability Scanning: Identifying known vulnerabilities in OS, applications, and networks
• Patch Management: Tracking unpatched resources and recommending updates

4. Compliance Monitoring

• Policy Mapping: Mapping regulatory requirements to specific cloud resources and configurations.
• Audit Trail Generation: Monitoring changes to cloud resources and user access for accurate compliance reporting.
• Benchmarking: Analyzing organizational security posture against industry best practices.

5. Remediation Recommendations

• Automated Remediation: Allowing automated patching, configuration changes, and incident response.
• Remediation Workflows: Providing step-by-step guidance for manual remediation tasks.

6. Reporting and Analytics

• Customizable Reports: Tailoring reports to specific security and compliance requirements.
• Accurate Visualization: Offering security dashboards with simplified security data.
• Trend Analysis: Identifying incident patterns over time.

Critical Differences Between CASB and CSPM

While discussing CASB vs CSPM, it is important to understand that they focus on different aspects of cloud security. While there are some overlapping functions, the two serve different purposes.

#1 CASB vs CSPM: Focus and Scope

CASB is primarily focused on end-user cloud interactions, ensuring secure data access and usage.

CSPM is concerned with the security of the cloud infrastructure itself. It brings network, storage, and compute resources under its scope.

#2 CASB vs CSPM: Core Functionalities

CASB:

• Enforces policies for data loss prevention or DLP
• Tracks and cloud-app usage and creates visibility into it
• Detects malware and ransomware injection
• Supports mobile device management

CSPM:

• Locates cloud misconfigurations
• Checks for compliance issues related to PCI, HIPAA, GDPR, or other regulations
• Discovers cloud resources and maintains an inventory of the same
• Performs risk assessment and vulnerability management
• Enforces security policies

#3 CASB vs CSPM: Deployment Models

You can typically deploy CASB as a proxy or agent-based solution

CSPM is usually deployed as a cloud-based and agentless solution

#4 CASB vs CSPM: Deployment location

CASB solutions operate at the edge of the network – between users and cloud applications. A CASB can be deployed in the cloud or as a hybrid solution.

CSPM typically works within the cloud environment interacting with the cloud provider APIs.

#5 CASB vs CSPM: Typical Use Cases

CASB is usually used for the following tasks:

• Protecting cloud-hosted data from leakage
• Detecting and preventing insider threats
• Ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations
• Securing cloud applications from security issues triggered by end-users
• Enabling secure remote access

CSPM is associated with the following use cases:

• Overall enhancement of cloud security posture
• Reducing the risk of data breaches
• Maintaining compliance with industry standards

CSPM vs CASB: Key Differences

Feature	CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker)	CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management)
Focus	Securing user access to cloud applications and data.	Securing the cloud infrastructure
Primary function	Controls and monitors access to cloud resources and cloud traffic.	Assesses risks and vulnerabilities to improve the overall security posture of cloud environments along with compliance.
Key capabilities	Data loss prevention (DLP), threat protection, visibility into cloud usage, user authentication, and authorization.	Configuration assessment, vulnerability management, compliance monitoring, risk assessment.
Deployment location	Edge of the network between users and cloud applications	Within the cloud environment
Typical use cases	Preventing data breaches, detecting insider threats, and securing cloud applications.	Identifying and remediating misconfigurations, ensuring compliance, and reducing risk.
Associated technologies	DLP, SSO, encryption, anomaly detection.	Configuration scanning, vulnerability assessment, compliance checks
Key benefits	Protection of sensitive data, improved visibility, and reduced risk of data leakage.	Enhanced cloud security posture, reduced compliance risks, optimized cloud resources

When Should You Choose CASB over CSPM or CSPM over CASB for your Organization?

The use of CASB or CSPM should be dictated by the security challenges your organization is facing or anticipating. CASB and CSPM have different focal points. Although some of the functionalities of CASB and CSPM overlap, it is possible to imagine different scenarios that warrant the use of one over the other.

When to Use a Cloud Access Security Broker?

CASB becomes unavoidable If your organization stores and processes sensitive data using cloud-hosted resources. CASB can play a vital role in protecting the data traffic in and out of a cloud storage facility.

Hence, if you are concerned about the security of data that’s accessed by employees and users using cloud solutions, CASB is a good choice.

Organizations struggling to manage shadow IT can also look towards a CASB for a solution. It can be an easy way of identifying and managing unsanctioned cloud usage.

When to Use Cloud Security Posture Management?

Cloud Security Posture Management or CSPM takes care of the overall security health of a cloud environment. It includes virtual machines, cloud-hosted resources, information, etc. If you are concerned about the security issues cropping up from cloud misconfigurations or security policy violations, CSPM might be the right way to address the issue.

CSPM allows you to largely automate the processes related to vulnerability management, remediation, and compliance monitoring.

Consolidating CASB and CSPM for a More Secure Cloud Environment

Organizations can unlock significant advantages by consolidating CASB and CSPM under a single platform with unified visibility and control. It allows you to secure both the cloud environment and the end-user cloud interactions with centralized control. So, it’s no longer CASB vs CSPM, but CASB plus CSPM.

Benefits of Integrating CASB and CSPM

1. Unified Visibility

Vigilance over user behavior and cloud infrastructures from a single vantage point allows for better threat detection and response.

2. Improved Efficiency 

A more streamlined approach to vulnerability and risk management through a single console reduces operational overhead.

3. Enhanced Correlation

Consolidation of data from both CASB and CSPM leads to more accurate threat detection and incident response.

4. Simplified Compliance

A unified platform supports compliance efforts by creating a centralized view of security controls.

Comprehensive Cloud security with SentinelOne

SentinelOne has created an all-encompassing cloud security solution with an award-winning, agentless cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP). It uses customized features to cover all your cloud security needs from a unified console.

Here’s what you get 

• A CSPM with more than 2000 built-in checks to flag every misconfigured cloud asset – Virtual Machines, containers, or serverless functions
• An industry-leading CNAPP with container and Kubernetes security, cloud detection and response (CDR), and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) scanning
• Identification and protection of more than 750 types of secrets spread across an organization’s private and public repositories
• Harmless attack simulations to discover vulnerabilities while eliminating false positives

SentinelOne’s static AI engine is trained on half a billion malware samples, together with the behavioral AI engine it enables you to detect any type of malware along with its intent. The DevOps-friendly platform powered by the petabyte-scale Singularity Data Lake increases the efficiency of threat hunting.

Here’s what organizations have achieved with SentinelOne

• Up to 95% reduction in MTTD, 88% reduction in MTTR, and 91% reduction in false positives
• Unrivaled cloud visibility, detection, and protection
• AI-powered cloud workload protection
• Accelerated multi-cloud innovation with seamless compliance

Conclusion

We have discussed CASB vs CSPM in detail – their definitions, functions, and use cases. We have gone through the different components of the two cloud security approaches and how they contribute to a comprehensive cloud security strategy. And finally, we have discussed how CASB and CSPM can be consolidated to strengthen an organization’s security posture. This should help conclude the CASB vs CSPM debate and foster a solid conceptualization.

FAQs

What is the Difference Between CSPM and ASPM?

ASPM or Application Security Posture Management involves identifying and remediating security issues within an application’s development lifecycle and runtime. CSPM, as you know, is focused on the security of cloud infrastructures.

What is the Difference Between CASB and CWPP?

While CASB focuses on securing access to the data and applications hosted on a cloud, CWPP or Cloud Workload Protection Platform secures the workloads running in a cloud.

Can I use CASB and CSPM together?

Yes, CASB and CSPM can be consolidated using a platform like SentinelOne, where you have an integrated approach toward securing the edge of the cloud and the cloud environment itself.

What is CASB vs CSPM vs CWPP?

CASB or Cloud Access Security Broker is a security checkpoint between end-users and the cloud that enforces security policies.

CSPM or Cloud Security Posture Management refers to a range of practices that aim to secure the cloud infrastructure.