8 CASB Tools for Cloud Security in 2025

A Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) tool is like a middleman between cloud users and cloud service providers that safeguards cloud data and cloud applications from cyber threats.

Organizations are leaning toward the cloud more because of their hybrid work culture and globally distributed workforce. But it opens the door to cyber security threats that can affect your reputation and impose hefty fines due to non-compliance.

Although cloud environments are flexible, scalable, and agile, it is essential to add an extra layer of security with capabilities, such as CASB tools, to defend your data and apps from cyber attacks. It helps you discover shadow IT, prevent data breaches, and manage complex compliance requirements.

In this article, you’ll learn about CASB tools, and why you need them. Learn about these 8 CASB tools available, and what factors to consider while selecting CASB tools in general.

What is CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker)?

Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) is a security control point between cloud service providers and cloud service users. The tool allows organizations to visualize, control, and protect data and apps in their cloud infrastructure, manage cloud usage, and comply with regulatory requirements.

The primary purpose of CASB is to provide advanced technologies and solutions, such as access control, URL filtering, shadow IT discovery, packet inspection, and more. It has four pillars, which are visibility, threat protection, data security, and compliance. These pillars serve as shields to address security gaps and provide comprehensive solutions to manage and control cloud threats.

Organizations use CASB tools to secure their cloud app ecosystem, protect sensitive data, and enforce compliance policies. With CASB tools, you’ll get multiple advanced features, such as cloud visibility, data security, access controls, threat protection, compliance management, real-time monitoring, shadow IT management, and zero-trust security.

Need for CASB Tools

Many companies support a hybrid work environment and Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policy where the workforce is spread globally. The company requires cloud applications so employees can work efficiently and access resources regardless of their location and time zone.

As a result, the use of unsecured and unsanctioned cloud apps increases the risks of data breaches. CASB tools enforce security policies between cloud service providers and users, discover and respond to cyber threats, comply with regulations, and run operations with full visibility into systems.

Here’s why businesses need CASB tools in detail:

• Higher cloud visibility: CASB tools provide detailed insights into your cloud applications, including unsanctioned applications. It helps you identify non-compliant or risky applications and suspicious behaviors. With this information, security teams can make better decisions on cloud usage.
• Shadow IT management: CASB tools check for unapproved applications and systems and understand their risks. Based on the risk score, you can approve or block cloud apps and systems to protect your cloud infrastructure from threats, such as shadow IT. This assures you that your employees are not exposing the organization’s data to risky apps knowingly or unknowingly.
• Reduces data breaches: CASB tools use machine learning algorithms and advanced behavioral analytics to track anomalies, such as large data downloads, unusual login patterns, etc., that point to data breaches. If it detects such anomalies, the CASB tool sends you alerts, so you can identify compromised accounts and respond to threats instantly.
• Granular access controls: Using a CASB tool, you can define access policies based on an employee’s job role, giving them access only to data and apps to complete their work. It helps you verify unknown devices and users before granting them access permissions to minimize the risk of unauthorized access.
• Integration: Most companies use major cloud platforms like Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and AWS to deploy their applications. CASB tools work across these platforms to provide comprehensive protection for any type of cloud service model. It offers API-based and proxy-based integration to provide better visibility, control, and inline protection.
• Saves time and money: CASB tools prevent compliance violations and data breaches to protect you from reputational damage and penalties. It automates security tasks to save you time and effort in remediation. Your team can rather invest that time to focus on important tasks. Also, it tracks and removes unused/unnecessary cloud services, so you can stop spending money on them.

CASB Tools Landscape for 2025

Below we will explore the key capabilities and features of CASB tools available in today’s market. Here is a list of eight notable ones to get started with:

SentinelOne

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is a comprehensive and AI-powered platform that protects your cloud infrastructure and applications from cyber threats. Its CASB tool gives you complete visibility and control over your cloud apps and data to eliminate the use of unsanctioned, suspicious, and unused apps.

The CASB tool is flexible, resilient, and cost-effective and comes with the best-in-class capabilities and features to meet security and compliance requirements. It offers graph-based asset history, eliminates misconfigurations, assesses compliance needs, enforces automated security policies, and ensures safety while deploying agentless cloud apps.

See the tour video to dig deeper into how it works and what benefits it offers.

Platform at a glance

• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): CSPM gives you complete visibility and control over your cloud apps to remove misconfigurations, manage compliance, and improve your security posture.

• Cloud Detection and Response (CDR): The platform detects and remediates cloud threats and attacks with its customizable and pre-built detection library, incident response management, and forensics telemetry.

• Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP): It monitors and addresses your workloads from threats in real time with its AI-based protection engine. It supports serverless instances, containers, physical servers, and Kubernetes across private, hybrid, on-prem, and public clouds.

• Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP): It offers a unified platform to secure your sensitive data from cyber threats with its world-class threat intelligence, hyperautomation, and real-time response.

Features:

• AI-powered threat detection and response: SentinelOne uses advanced AI algorithms to monitor, detect, and block unknown and known threats across your cloud apps. It automatically remediates threats, accelerates response times, and reduces damage.

• Unified visibility: SentinelOne provides complete visibility into your cloud applications and user accounts. This allows you to monitor usage patterns and analyze user behavior, detect anomalies, and block unused and unsanctioned apps.

• Multi-cloud support: The platform supports hybrid and multi-cloud deployments, including on-prem, private, and public clouds. This secures your complete IT infrastructure.

• Cloud data security: It helps you secure your cloud apps and protect cloud platforms from threats, including containers, Kubernetes, and servers. Its defense engine prevents malware from infecting your cloud storage, such as Amazon S3.

• Data loss prevention: The platform monitors the flow of data across cloud services to prevent unauthorized downloading, uploading, and sharing of any details. It also helps you during audits to meet regulatory requirements through security policy enforcement and detailed reports.

• Hyperautomation: It offers low-code/no-code hyperautomation workflows to detect and respond to threats faster.

Core Problems that SentinelOne Eliminates

• SentinelOne’s CASB tool lets you visualize your cloud apps and services for sanctioned and unsanctioned devices.
• Utilizes AI-powered threat detection and response to detect and eliminate threats before they happen.
• Behavioral analytics detects and remediates advanced threats, such as fileless malware, unknown risks, ransomware, and zero-day threats.
• Enforces security policies between cloud service providers and users to ensure your organization has security controls across SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS platforms.
• Defines policies to restrict the use of unapproved apps and the sharing of sensitive data.
• Ensures compliance with industry standards, such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR, and provides reports for accountability and avoiding penalties.
• Offers rollback capabilities to revert the devices and apps to their original state, so you can continue your operations without affecting employee productivity.
• Implements strict access controls to allow only privileged users to access sensitive data and apps.

Testimonials

Raymond Schippers, Head of Threat Detection and Response at Canva happily states —

“I would describe SentinelOne in three words. Reliability, performance, and scalability”

Take a look at SentinelOne’s Singularity Cloud Security on PeerSpot and Gartner Peer Insights (GPI) to understand how it secures your cloud applications and data from advanced cyber threats.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps secures your applications, improves your app posture, and protects your sensitive data by enforcing security policies with its CASB solution. Get complete visibility into your cloud application infrastructure to make sure your employees use approved, secure, and compliant applications.

Features:

• Discovers, controls, and configures applications to prevent unauthorized access.
• Categorizes sensitive information based on the status (in motion, use, or rest) and allows employees to access and view files safely.
• Gives you greater control and visibility into permissions, privileges, and applications that use sensitive data.
• Offers threat-hunting to find threats and defend your cloud apps from advanced cyberattacks.
• Offers scenario-based detections on your entire cyberattack chain so your security operations run without affecting performance and productivity.
• Manages over 31,000 apps by assessing their risk factors and discovering shadow IT.
• Uses Microsoft Graph APIs to monitor, protect, and govern line-of-business and OAuth-enabled applications.
• Monitors gaps in the configuration using Microsoft Secure Score to protect your cloud apps from misconfigurations and data breaches.
• Gives full coverage of your cloud apps by combining app-to-app integration, SaaS security posture management, integrated threat protection, and CASB data loss prevention.

Explore the feedback and ratings to know what users feel about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access protects your hybrid workforce with its CASB technology, which improves productivity and user experience without lag. It secures application traffic by combining next-gen CASB, DLP, FWaaS, SWG, and ZTNA 2.0 to provide modern capabilities. You’ll get a policy framework to reduce the risk of data breaches.

Features:

• Offers control over your cloud environment and defines access only to authorized users.
• Simplifies workflows and fixes misconfigurations in your cloud apps.
• You get ML-powered DLP to protect detection engines and sensitive data from cyber attackers.
• Provides cloud security posture management, API-based and inline controls, and security policies to control access levels.
• Monitors your cloud applications continuously to detect compromised accounts and insider threats in real time.

Find out what users have to say about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks on PeerSpot.

Symantec CloudSOC

Symantec CloudSOC protects your sensitive information in the cloud by enforcing security policies. It allows you to visualize your cloud apps, secure data, and monitor threats.

Also, it integrates with your organization’s existing security framework to provide advanced protection, detection, and response to cyber risks.

Features:

• Acts as a shield to protect your cloud apps from cyber attackers and eliminate shadow IT, compliance risks, and malicious content.
• Monitors and discovers threats with greater visibility and control over your cloud resources.
• Checks if your data and apps meet regulatory and compliance requirements like HIPAA and GDPR.
• Safeguard the information stored in the clouds from accidental loss and insider theft.
• Combines information on users, assets, accounts, and violations to assign risk scores.
• Ensures that employees are not using any unapproved applications with regular monitoring and greater visibility.

Take a look at the reviews on Symantec CloudSOC and understand its functions.

Netskope One

Netskope One is a cloud-based CASB tool that offers networking and data security for your cloud apps. The platform provides a safe way for you to adopt cloud applications and services. It enforces adaptive security policies across your cloud deployments to safeguard your data from modern threats.

Features:

• Monitors your cloud apps to secure your organization from risks, including unauthorized transfer of information between applications.
• Identifies whether the applications are managed by IT teams or hidden from them, so you can block those apps and stop malicious threats.
• Provides visibility into IaaS and SaaS platforms and reduces data exposure.
• The CASB security solution uses AI-driven algorithms to speed up risk categorization in your SaaS applications.
• Uses more than 3000 data classifiers and 1800 file types to detect and respond to cyber threats using deep learning, AI, and ML.
• You get aggregated risk intelligence in the CASB dashboard to provide API, SSPM, and inline controls and visibility into privileges and users.

Here’s what users feel about the Netskope One CASB tool.

McAfee Skyhigh Security

McAfee Skyhigh Security offers AI-powered SSE solutions to prevent malicious activities, secure cloud data, and ensure compliance. This way, your remote workforce can confidently and securely use applications across the cloud environment. This cloud-native platform manages your cloud security, so you don’t have to face operational hiccups.

Features:

• Protects your sensitive data with advanced DLP using a single data policy.
• Offers real-time threat prevention with greater visibility into your cloud apps.
• Provides a secure web gateway to protect your hybrid workforce from zero-day threats while accessing cloud apps.
• Audits your cloud apps consistently to provide reports and reduce misconfiguration.
• Gives you control over the cloud services and extends the protection capabilities across the network and endpoints by enforcing strong security policies.

Read user reviews on McAfee Skyhigh Security to understand how useful the platform is.

Forcepoint CASB

Forcepoint CASB solution allows you to use cloud applications without worrying about data security and compliance requirements. It unites with Bitglass to offer a single digital security platform to secure your data across devices, locations, and apps. With zero-day threat protection and cloud DLP engine capabilities, it provides a proactive approach to security with technologies, such as incident response, security automation, and penetration testing.

Features:

• Detects shadow IT and managed and unmanaged devices.
• Performs risk analysis and controls high-risk data going out of your network.
• Simplifies cloud deployment through proxy logs or stream firewall to the platform discovery service.
• Authenticates users across cloud apps and secures travel of data to or from the cloud.
• Stops known and unknown risks instantly with predictive security engine.
• Provides a single and cross-app view of your employee’s details so you know what applications they are using.
• The CASB security tool learns and adapts to your new cloud apps, behaviors, and devices to predict malware patterns and protect data.

Check out the online reviews of Forcepoint’s CASB tool and explore more about its functions.

Cisco Cloudlock

Cisco Cloudlock is a CASB tool that uses machine learning to protect cloud data, apps, and users from malicious threats. It provides an open, simple, and automated approach through an API to manage security risks. It applies security rules consistently across your cloud infrastructure to protect against data breaches while complying with regulatory standards.

Features:

• Uses advanced ML algorithms to detect and respond to threats.
• Identifies suspicious employee behaviour and unnecessary actions to ensure user security.
• Offers DLP technology to monitor the cloud ecosystem continuously.
• Enforces policies to safeguard your apps and data from security breaches.
• The Apps Firewall detects unapproved cloud apps connected to your infrastructure so you can allow or ban them.
• Offers automated shadow IT visibility to discover and block unauthorized app access, and FedRAMP ATO to adopt secure cloud across various platforms.

Take a look at users’ perspectives on Cisco Cloudlock.

Critical Considerations When Choosing a CASB Tool?

Selecting the right tool out of dozens of CASB tools available in the market is tiresome. Each of them offers multiple deployment options, integration capabilities, solutions, and pricing structures.

Consider the factors below while choosing a CASB tool for your cloud app infrastructure:

• Advanced capabilities: Check if your CASB tool offers powerful DLP features to secure sensitive data from theft and unauthorized access. Look for features, such as behavioral analytics, comprehensive visibility, and malware detection and prevention. The tool must support Zero Trust architecture to permit only verified devices and users.
• Security controls: Look for a CASB tool with security controls, such as role-based access controls (RBAC), customizable policies, and context-aware policies. This allows you to understand the strength of the CASB tool.
• Cloud compatibility: Check whether your CASB tool supports major cloud services and platforms, such as Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and AWS. Look for shadow IT discovery capability to ensure that your tool can identify and block unauthorized cloud applications.
• User experience: The CASB tool must have a dashboard for admins and security teams to visualize cloud-related risks and used applications in a single place. Check for training materials and docs that can help you deploy the tool easily. You need to be sure that your tool can easily integrate with your cloud applications without affecting user workflows and productivity.
• Pricing: Understand the pricing model, whether it is usage-based or subscription-based. Compare different CASB security vendors based on their hidden costs, cost of ownership, and other costs. Finally, decide whether the tool you are choosing comes within your budget or not.

Conclusion

CASB tools are intermediaries between cloud users and cloud service providers. Most CASB tools use AI and ML to detect threats, unapproved data transfers, and misconfigurations. They help you manage your access controls, protect data, and comply with industry standards. They are scalable and flexible and make your security operations more efficient with automation.

Many companies are now adopting CASB tools to support hybrid workforce and BYOD policy since cloud threats are looming everywhere. But selecting the right CASB tool is a necessity to optimize your cloud investment and get better returns. Choose a CASB tool that’s easy to use, comes with powerful functionalities, offers complete visibility into cloud apps, protects your data security, and manages compliance.

If you are looking for a powerful CASB tool to protect your cloud data and applications, SentinelOne Singularity™ Cloud Security is one of the best options. It offers you advanced security features to address data breaches and safeguard your cloud data from modern cyber threats.

FAQs

1. What is a CASB tool?

CASB tool is a security intermediary between users and cloud service providers that enforces security policies for your cloud applications. It helps prevent threats, visualize deployments, protect data, detect unauthorized access, and ensure compliance. It comes with various capabilities, such as shadow IT discovery, malicious packet inspection, browser isolation, and more.

2. Why do organizations need CASB tools?

Organizations need CASB tools to protect their data and apps from cyber threats. It allows them to get complete visibility into the cloud apps to create strong access policies, block unwanted apps, and secure data from theft. The software also checks for regulatory compliance to prevent your company from penalties and paying hefty fees.

3. Are CASB tools only for large enterprises?

No, CASB tools are not designed for large enterprises only. Small to medium-sized businesses can also use CASB technologies to enforce security policies and secure their cloud data and apps. However, large enterprises adopt CASB solutions most often as they have larger security needs with more cloud applications usage and workforce spread worldwide.

4. Can CASB tools detect and prevent data breaches?

Yes, CASB tools can detect and prevent data breaches easily by monitoring user activities, enforcing security policies, and identifying potential threats. It offers many capabilities, such as URL filtering, compliance reporting, sandboxing, packet inspection, shadow IT discovery, and security analytics to prevent data breaches from cyber threats.

5. What deployment options are available for CASB tools?

CASB tools support two deployment options — API-based and proxy-based deployment models. Choose a deployment model based on your security requirements and cloud infrastructure.

API-based deployment model allows you to monitor activities and enforce security measures across data and cloud apps. Meanwhile, the proxy-based deployment model inspects all traffic and blocks unwanted traffic in real time.

6. Can CASB tools detect insider threats?

Yes, CASB tools can detect insider threats using its User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA), machine learning algorithms, and other capabilities. It detects compromised accounts and blocks unused/suspicious apps immediately to prevent cyber attacks.