CASB vs DLP: What Does Your Business Need in 2024?

TL;DR:

• CASB and DLP are crucial components in cybersecurity for organizations using cloud technologies.
• CASB provides visibility, control, and threat protection for cloud services.
• DLP prevents data breaches, intellectual property theft, and regulatory violations.
• An ideal CASB vs DLP solution should have features like comprehensive visibility, advanced threat protection, accurate data detection, and compliance management.
• Strac offers a robust SaaS/Cloud and Endpoint DLP solution with modern features and comprehensive capabilities for organizations in 2024.

What is CASB and DLP?

Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)

A CASB acts as a gatekeeper between an organization's on-premises infrastructure and a cloud provider's infrastructure. It enforces security policies, compliance, and governance across cloud services. Examples of CASB functionalities include:

1. Visibility and Control: CASBs provide granular visibility into cloud service usage, helping organizations monitor and manage access to sensitive data.
2. Threat Protection: CASBs detect and mitigate potential threats by analyzing user behavior and identifying anomalous activities.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

DLP solutions are designed to protect sensitive data from unauthorized access, sharing, and loss. They monitor, detect, and prevent data breaches by enforcing data security policies across various endpoints, networks, and storage systems. Examples of DLP functionalities include:

1. Content Discovery: DLP tools scan data repositories to identify sensitive information such as PCI, HIPAA, or GDPR-related data.
2. Data Protection: DLP solutions apply remediation actions such as encryption, redaction, or blocking to safeguard sensitive data.

What Risks or Problems Do CASB vs DLP Solve?

Both CASB and DLP address specific security challenges, often complementing each other to provide comprehensive data protection.

CASB Risk Mitigation

1. Shadow IT: CASBs help organizations discover and manage unsanctioned cloud applications (shadow IT) that employees might use without approval, potentially exposing sensitive data.
2. Regulatory Compliance: CASBs enforce compliance with industry standards such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR by ensuring that cloud services adhere to required security protocols.
3. Insider Threats: CASBs monitor user activities to detect and respond to suspicious behavior that might indicate insider threats.

DLP Risk Mitigation

1. Data Breaches: DLP solutions prevent unauthorized data transfers by monitoring and controlling data flows across endpoints and networks, reducing the risk of data breaches.
2. Intellectual Property Theft: DLP tools protect proprietary information and intellectual property from being leaked or stolen by applying stringent security policies.
3. Regulatory Violations: DLP solutions ensure that sensitive data is handled according to regulatory requirements, minimizing the risk of non-compliance penalties.

What Does an Ideal CASB vs DLP Solution Need to Have?

An ideal CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) vs. DLP (Data Loss Prevention) solution should possess certain key features for organizations to maximize their data security posture. Both solutions address distinct aspects of data security, yet they complement each other to provide comprehensive protection.

Ideal CASB Features

Comprehensive Visibility

An ideal CASB solution must provide detailed insights into cloud service usage. This includes monitoring user activities, identifying data access patterns, and highlighting anomalies that could indicate potential security risks. Comprehensive visibility ensures that organizations have a clear understanding of how their data is being accessed and used in the cloud environment.

Advanced Threat Protection

Robust threat detection and mitigation capabilities are crucial for an effective CASB. Leveraging advanced technologies such as machine learning and behavioral analysis, the CASB should be able to identify and respond to potential threats in real-time. This includes detecting unusual user behavior, identifying malware, and preventing unauthorized access to sensitive data.

Seamless Integration

For a CASB solution to be effective, it must integrate smoothly with existing security infrastructure and cloud services. This ensures consistent policy enforcement across all platforms and reduces the complexity of managing multiple security tools. Seamless integration helps organizations maintain a cohesive security posture and streamline their operations.

Data Security and Encryption

A top-notch CASB should also provide strong data security measures, including encryption both at rest and in transit. This protects sensitive information from unauthorized access and ensures data integrity across cloud services.

Ideal DLP Features

Accurate Data Detection

The core function of a DLP solution is to accurately identify sensitive data across various formats and repositories. This includes structured and unstructured data, email communications, file transfers, and more. An effective DLP solution should minimize false positives and negatives to ensure that genuine threats are addressed without hindering business operations.

Flexible Remediation Actions

Once sensitive data is identified, the DLP solution must offer a range of remediation actions tailored to specific business needs. These actions can include encryption, redaction, blocking, and more. Flexibility in remediation allows organizations to customize their response strategies based on the severity and context of each incident.

Compliance Management

An ideal DLP solution should facilitate compliance with multiple regulatory frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA. This includes providing predefined templates for common regulatory requirements and offering customization options to address specific compliance needs. Effective compliance management helps organizations avoid penalties and maintain a strong legal standing.

User Education and Training

Besides technical capabilities, an effective DLP solution should also support user education and training. By raising awareness about data protection policies and best practices, organizations can foster a security-conscious culture and reduce the risk of data breaches due to human error.

An ideal CASB vs. DLP solution should offer a comprehensive and integrated approach to data security, addressing both cloud service usage and data loss prevention. By combining advanced threat protection, seamless integration, accurate data detection, and flexible remediation, organizations can achieve a robust and adaptive security posture.

Why Choose Strac for your Business?

Strac offers a robust SaaS/Cloud and Endpoint DLP solution that stands out with its modern features and comprehensive capabilities.

• Built-In & Custom Detectors: Strac supports a wide array of sensitive data element detectors for PCI, HIPAA, GDPR, and other confidential data. It also allows customization, enabling customers to configure their own data elements. Notably, Strac is the only DLP solution that performs detection and redaction of images (JPEG, PNG, screenshots) and conducts deep content inspection on document formats like PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, and zip files. Check out Strac’s full catalog of sensitive data elements.
• Compliance: Strac helps organizations achieve compliance with PCI, SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO-27001, CCPA, GDPR, and NIST frameworks. Explore compliance details for PCI, SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, CCPA, and NIST.
• Ease of Integration: Strac allows customers to integrate their DLP solutions seamlessly in under 10 minutes, providing instant DLP/live scanning/live redaction on their SaaS apps.
• Accurate Detection and Redaction: Leveraging custom machine learning models trained on sensitive PII, PHI, PCI, and confidential data, Strac ensures high accuracy with low false positives and negatives.
• Rich and Extensive SaaS Integrations: Strac boasts the widest and deepest range of SaaS and cloud integrations.
• AI Integration: In addition to comprehensive SaaS, cloud, and endpoint integration, Strac integrates with LLM APIs and AI websites like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Microsoft Copilot. Learn more about how Strac protects AI or LLM apps and safeguards sensitive data in the Strac Developer Documentation.
• Endpoint DLP: Strac is the only solution offering accurate and comprehensive DLP for SaaS, cloud, and endpoint environments. Discover more about Strac’s Endpoint DLP.
• API Support: Strac provides APIs for developers to detect or redact sensitive data. Explore the Strac API Docs.
• Inline Redaction: Strac can redact (mask or blur) sensitive text within any attachment, providing an additional layer of data protection.
• Customizable Configurations: With out-of-the-box compliance templates and flexible configurations, Strac ensures data protection measures align with specific business needs.

• Happy Customers: Read what our satisfied clients have to say in the G2 Reviews

In conclusion, when considering CASB vs DLP for your organization, it’s essential to understand the unique roles and benefits of each solution. Strac offers a comprehensive, integrated approach that ensures robust data protection across all platforms, making it an ideal choice for modern enterprises.