- Cloud Protection
- Compliance
- Data Leak Prevention
- Bring your own device
- Copy protection
- Data access control
- Data at rest
- Data in transit
- Data in use
- Data leakage
- Data loss prevention
- Data security
- Data security posture management
- Data security breach
- Data theft
- File security
- Incident response
- Indicators of compromise
- Insider threat
- Ransomware attack
- USB blocker
- BadUSB
- USB drop attack
- Data Risk Assessment
- File Analysis
- File Audit
Cloud app security
What is cloud app security?
Cloud application security is a set of tools, controls, and practices that ensure the safe use of cloud-based apps—whether SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), or IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). It protects users, devices, and data as they interact with cloud services— preventing misuse, data loss, compliance violations, and cyber threats.
Why cloud app security matters
The importance of cloud app security becomes clear when you consider these risks:
- Addressing shadow IT: The use of unauthorized cloud apps and access to malicious sites can expose systems to malware, phishing, and data theft.
- Meeting compliance obligations: Regulated industries must ensure robust cloud security controls to meet compliance requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS).
- Defending against evolving threats: As threat actors grow more sophisticated, inadequate cloud security can leave your infrastructure vulnerable to data breaches, service disruptions, and financial loss.
Cloud application security frameworks
As we defined earlier, cloud app security isn't a single tool—it's an ecosystem of layered security frameworks designed to protect different aspects of cloud usage. Most modern cloud app security frameworks are built around the following three foundational pillars:
CASB – Cloud Access Security Broker
A CASB acts as a security checkpoint between users and cloud applications. It provides visibility into app usage, enforces policies for data access and sharing, and helps organizations detect risky behavior.
- Primary focus: User-to-app interactions
- What it does: Enforces access, sharing, and DLP policies in SaaS
- Example: Blocking the upload of confidential files to personal cloud drives
CSPM – Cloud Security Posture Management
CSPM addresses misconfigurations and security gaps in cloud environment. It continuously scans storage, compute, and networking, assesses security risks, and deploys remediation measures. CSPM helps organizations align with benchmarks such as CIS, NIST, or the GDPR.
- Primary focus: Cloud configuration and compliance
- What it does: Monitors and corrects infrastructure settings in IaaS/PaaS
- Example: Alerting if a cloud storage bucket is publicly accessible
CWPP – Cloud Workload Protection Platform
CWPP solutions secures cloud workloads—such as virtual machines, containers, or serverless functions. Unlike CASB or CSPM, which focus on apps and infrastructure, CWPP operates at the runtime level. It detects threats, analyzes behavior, and defends against attacks that target application logic or execution environments.
- Primary focus: Application workloads and runtime protection
- What it does: Monitors and secures compute environments
- Example: Detecting and stopping malicious code execution in a container
In summary,
- CASB governs how users interact with cloud apps
- CSPM ensures the cloud environment is securely configured
- CWPP protects the workloads that run within it
Together they enable visibility, compliance, data security, and threat protection in cloud environments.
Real-world cloud threats and how cloud app security resolves them
1. Stolen credentials lead to a data breach
An employee at a healthcare company falls victim to a phishing email. Their stolen login credentials are used by an attacker to access a cloud-hosted document platform. Over the next two days, the attacker downloads files containing sensitive patient records. The breach isn't discovered until long after the data has been exfiltrated.
How cloud app security resolves this:
- A CASB tool could flag the anomalous login or block access entirely.
- Integration with a identity provider would enforce multi-factor authentication.
- A data transfer control policy would block the downloads of sensitive files.
2. Shadow IT exposes confidential data
At a financial services company, employees use a popular but unauthorized online collaboration tool to share spreadsheets with customer account data. Months later, a client file is discovered in a public web search—leaked unintentionally by an employee who enabled public sharing.
How cloud app security resolves this:
- A CASB tool could detect and inventory all cloud apps used across the organization.
- Security teams could assess the risk level of each app and block or allow accordingly.
- Granular DLP policies would would enforce secure sharing and disable public link creation.
3. Misconfigured settings serve as an entry point
At a tech startup, an administrator accidentally exposes a test environment to the internet without authentication. The tool has backend access to live production data through an unprotected API, which a threat actor exploits to steal sensitive customer data and access internal dashboards.
How cloud app security resolves this:
- A CSPM tool would flag the publicly accessible API and triggers an alert.
- In some cases, the tool can auto remediate the risk by closing the port or disabling public access.
4. A ransomware attack that started from a file upload
An employee uploads a malware embedded PDF to a shared folder in a cloud drive. As the folder syncs across the team, several users open the file, activating a ransomware payload that locks their systems and encrypts internal files across the network.
How cloud app security resolves this:
- An integrated malware detection and file scanning tool could scan file uploads uploaded files, and block or quarantine any malicious content before it spreads.
- If the malware had slipped through, user behavior analytics would detect unusual file activity and trigger containment actions.
Cloud protection with DataSecurity Plus
DataSecurity Plus is a unified data security posture management platform that offers cloud data control policies including file upload, download, and login control. Use Data Security Plus' Cloud Protection module to prevent unauthorized file transfers to and from obscure cloud applications and unwarranted access to sensitive cloud data.
- Cloud application discovery helps you gain visibility into your internet traffic and allows you to block access to specific applications.
- A strong threat analytics database identifies malware-infected, phishing, and spam websites through reputation scores and helps administrators make informed decisions.
- Advanced URL filtering allows or block risky websites by identifying malignant domains.
- Block file uploads to and downloads from cloud applications like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, etc.
- Manage logins to cloud applications and ensure only authorized personnel can access cloud applications.
Try all these features and more in DataSecurity Plus' Cloud Protection module with a free, fully functional 30-day trial.
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