Cloud Security tools : CASB, CWPP & CSPM & Use Cases

- | July 10, 2025

# Cloud Security Tools Overview The three different cloud security tools which will cover almost every threat in cloud security are **CASB**, **CWP**, and **CSPM**. Let’s explore these tools, their use cases, and explain *why automation is necessary for cloud security to succeed at scale*. ### Cloud Security Overview Cloud Security is a suite of services that helps companies in their digital transformation and cloud adoption process to achieve their security goals in public/hybrid cloud environments (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS). This suite includes the following services: - **Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)** - **Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)** - **Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)** ## What is CASB? **CASBs** are on-premises or cloud-based security policy enforcement points, placed between cloud service consumers and cloud service providers. They combine and enforce enterprise security policies as cloud-based resources are accessed. CASBs consolidate multiple types of security policy enforcement, including: - Authentication - Single sign-on (SSO) - Authorization - Credential mapping - Device profiling - Encryption - Tokenization - Logging - Alerting - Malware detection and prevention ### CASB Use Cases: - **Visibility**: Involves cloud identification, risk assessment, audit trails for forensic investigation, and e-discovery. - **Data protection**: DLP, governance, risk-based access control, data encryption & key management, tokenization, DRM, and MDM. - **Threat protection**: Protects clouds from malicious insiders, compromised accounts, advanced persistent threats (APTs), API attacks, malware, ransomware, etc. - **Compliance**: Ensures compliance with data protection, data sovereignty (data residency), and global regulations. ## What is CWP? **Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPPs)** provide workload-centric security protection solutions, typically agent-based. They address the unique requirements of server workload protection in modern hybrid data center architectures that span on-premises, physical, and virtual machines (VMs), and multiple public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) environments. CWPP also supports container-based application architectures. In simpler terms, **CWP** provides a cloud-based security solution that protects instances on AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and other cloud vendors. ### CWP Major Use Cases: - System hardening - Vulnerability management - Network firewalling - Micro-segmentation - System integrity monitoring - Application whitelisting - Anti-malware scanning - Exploit prevention/memory protection - Server workload EDR - Behavioral monitoring ## What is CSPM? **Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)** tools are fundamental to cloud security. CSP focuses on security assessment and compliance monitoring, primarily across the IaaS cloud stack. CSPM tools leverage API integrations with cloud providers to automatically discover cloud assets and their associated risks. Nearly all successful attacks on cloud services are the result of **customer misconfiguration, mismanagement, and mistakes**. Security and risk management leaders should invest in CSPM tools to proactively identify and remediate these risks. ### CSPM Solutions are Commonly Used for: - Identifying risky configuration settings and providing visibility into the current security posture of your cloud environment. - Recognizing and logging configuration changes, tracking who made them, and identifying accidental, inappropriate, or malicious changes. - Maintaining compliance with security frameworks such as CIS, NIST, HIPAA/HITECH, PCI DSS, and CSF. - Inventorying all cloud assets across IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS, and alerting when new items are added, who added them, and whether they are secure and compliant. ## Cloud Visibility & Cloud Security Tool Groups - **For SaaS environments**, deploy a **CASB** to protect sensitive data. - **For IaaS environments**, deploy both **CSPM** to assess your cloud configuration and **CWPP** to extend workload protection to the cloud. ## Why Automation is Essential for Cloud Security at Scale For cloud security to succeed at scale, **automation is key**. Cloud automation ensures that human error during setup doesn’t leave your application or data vulnerable to attack. Automated monitoring is the only realistic way to ensure your application stays as secure as possible and that security vulnerabilities aren’t introduced. Continuous security and compliance can only be achieved through automation tools that manage access across the board and dynamically fix security vulnerabilities in real-time. Automation also allows your IT team to focus on projects that **can’t be automated**, like developing a security strategy. ## Joint Responsibility in Cloud Security It is always recommended that implementing cloud security processes should be a **joint responsibility** between the business owner and the solution provider.