This post was originally published here by Paul Sullivan.
Keeping cloud services running is a complex, multi-faceted endeavor for cloud service providers. They need to juggle adding new features, keeping their customers’ sensitive data secure, and having high uptime for their services – there is virtually no room for error. Microsoft learned about the need for high uptime a few weeks ago when they suffered a four-hour outage for users with multi-factor authentication enabled on their Azure and Office 365 services.
For companies that use these services, the impact of outages can be significant. Many firms have all of their documents hosted in cloud storage or use Salesforce as their source of client information. If an outage happens, these companies typically find themselves scrambling to keep everything from grinding to a halt while hoping that their provider can fix the problem quickly.
Fortunately, this risk can be mitigated by diversifying and using several specialized cloud services for different purposes. That way, if one goes down, not everything is impacted and business can continue. Many companies have already realized this, with a projected 85% of companies using more than one cloud provider in 2018. The tradeoff with multiple providers is that it then becomes harder to enforce consistent security policies across multiple, disparate, disjointed cloud services. Luckily, a cloud access security broker(CASB) can help solve these problems by providing security controls and authentication for all apps from a single pane of glass. In this way, enterprises can benefit from specialized, advanced cybersecurity, and cloud service providers like Microsoft can focus on keeping solutions like Offiice 365 online.
When companies migrate to cloud-based applications, they put themselves at risk if they don’t equip themselves with the correct security tools. The purpose of a CASB is to secure corporate data, protect against threats like malware, ensure robust authentication, and provide visibility over all user and file activity. With the rapid growth of cloud apps continuing to accelerate, cloud access security brokers are more necessary than ever.
Photo:Securities.io
