Author: Haviv Ohayon

Have you ever experienced typing your data into a form on a SaaS app, hitting “Save,” and then thinking, “Hey, wait…where did my data just go?”. We’re so thrilled with the convenience, speed, and economy of SaaS applications that we forget we’re storing some of our most sensitive data in the SaaS vendor’s cloud. 

Data leakage is the most common SaaS security incident for IT and security professionals, with 58% having experienced one in the previous two years. 41% percent of respondents suffered a SaaS data breach in that period. 

The cloud infrastructure supporting your favorite SaaS apps is often secure. However, according to almost every SaaS user agreement and based on the Shared Responsibility Model, you still have a fair share of responsibility for protecting your SaaS data. 

What is SaaS Data Security?

SaaS data security comprises the risk analysis, policies, and practices that protect data stored on SaaS apps. The specifics of any SaaS data security program will vary based on the type of organization and the data it holds on SaaS. In general, however, SaaS data security aims to reduce the risk of data breaches and other attacks that can damage or delete your data. 

Not all data stored on SaaS is equally important regarding security. The big issue with SaaS data security is the difficulty in understanding which documents stored on a SaaS platform are innocuous and which aren’t. 

Almost anything could be in a SaaS file drive, from patent applications to confidential legal agreements. For instance, zombie Sharepoint groups and data repositories make Sharepoint security challenging. Alternatively, a SaaS app might contain customer information subject to privacy laws, which may differ from country to country. 

Access controls and integrations play a role in securing SaaS data. Keep in mind that threats can be internal, too. Employees or customers may steal or carelessly mishandle data, and the impact on data security is no less profound. 

Top Challenges of Securing Your SaaS Data

Defending data stored on SaaS apps has its share of challenges, propelled mainly by the dynamic nature of the cloud. For instance, knowing who can access the SaaS app or how each user configures their security settings can be complicated. 

Some of the more common and severe challenges in SaaS data security include:

• Securely managing user identities—knowing who is who and who can access what, especially as employees get hired, change roles, and depart the company. 
• Safeguarding data in transit and at rest—ensuring that SaaS data is encrypted when crossing the network or stored on a disk drive. 
• Integrating SaaS applications with other services—staying on top of the connections and plugins as they affect data stored on SaaS apps.
• Complying with data residency rules and other regulations—adhering to mandates like “data sovereignty,” which govern where data about citizens of a given country can be stored. 
• Preventing data loss—following Data Loss Prevention (DLP) practices that help you avoid accidental deletion of SaaS data and system failures or security incidents that can affect data.

Shadow IT, particularly shadow SaaS, threatens to make these challenges even more grueling. When virtually anyone in an organization can set up a SaaS account with a credit card and start moving corporate data onto that app, security teams can struggle to keep up. Shadow SaaS creates security blind spots and increases SaaS data risk exposure.

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7 Tips to Keep Your SaaS Data Secure

1. Stay on top of best practices for SaaS Security Posture

SaaS data security is—or should be—a subset of a broader commitment to SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM). After all, security countermeasures that protect SaaS apps from unauthorized access and abuse also serve to protect the data they store. 

Getting serious about SSPM means conducting regular security audits, logging and monitoring SaaS activity, and using strong access controls such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) to better manage identities and how they use your resources. It also includes training employees in SaaS security and establishing (and testing) a SaaS incident response plan.

2. Know your SaaS vendor

Your SaaS vendor has a great deal of control over the security of your data. While you are responsible for your end of the SaaS data security, the vendor’s systems are where the data is stored. 

Review your SaaS vendor’s data security policies carefully to ensure they comply with data privacy laws and data sovereignty regulations. For instance, if you keep data about French citizens on devices hosted inside France, your SaaS vendor must comply with all the French data regulations (and prove that they’ve done so).  

Most reputable SaaS vendors willingly share their data security management and privacy policies with customers. If they don’t, maybe that’s not a vendor to use. They should tell you, for instance, if they encrypt your data at rest and in transit through end-to-end encryption or E2EE.

The good news is that several respected organizations do the heavy lifting for you in vetting your SaaS vendor. A SaaS vendor might have certifications like the Cloud Security Alliance Star Verification or have passed an audit for EuroCloud SaaS Star or SOC2 and PCI-DSS. Such certificates establish that the vendor has met specific strict standards for data security.

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3. Define and implement data governance policies 

It’s hard to steal data from SaaS if it isn’t there or never existed in the first place. This is the realm of data governance, whose policies can be an effective countermeasure bolstering SaaS data security. 

Consider a customer intake form on a customer relationship management (CRM) solution. You can adjust these customizable forms to limit sensitive personal data that isn’t necessary for the customer relationship and avoid putting this data at risk of being breached or misused. 

Disposing of old data can also help you prevent security misconfigurations in your apps. For example, you can establish a firm policy to delete data over seven years old automatically. Don’t forget to delete such data from your backups as well. This requires automated data management tools, often available on SaaS apps.

4. Know where your data is

With the average company utilizing over a hundred SaaS apps, keeping track of where users put corporate data is nearly impossible. No manual process could keep IT managers informed on where data resides in the SaaS ecosystem. 

SSPM solutions like Suridata employ automated data scanning processes to identify where data is located across the SaaS environment. Suridata then alerts IT managers if it detects the presence of sensitive data in a SaaS app that is not adequately secured or subject to overly broad access privileges. 

5. Regularly monitor your data security controls

It’s one thing to implement data security controls. It’s another to be confident they’re working as expected over the long term. It is a best practice to monitor data security controls regularly. For example, suppose you’ve mandated that SaaS apps only be accessed through a cloud access security broker (CASB) or established endpoint hardening standards for employee devices. You should continuously check that these policies are being enforced.

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6. Implement robust security measures for accessing your data

Your SaaS data is only as secure as the password you use to access it. Of the 56 million leaked passwords in 2023, the password “123456” was used in 111,417 cases. Default passwords such as “admin,” “root,” or guest” were equally (and worryingly) prevalent. 

The most straightforward measures are often the most impactful. Ensure you employ multi-layered authentication protocols such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and strong, regularly updated passwords so that only authorized users can access the data. 

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7. Back up your data regularly

There is often some confusion about SaaS data backups, so it bears explaining. Most of the time, the SaaS vendor will back up its cloud instances. If they experience an outage, your data should be safe. However, the SaaS vendor’s backup does not necessarily protect you from cyberattacks and malicious data handling on a SaaS platform. If an insider decides to delete your SaaS data, you may have lost it for good. 

Getting Started Protecting Your SaaS Data

SaaS apps are most likely holding a lot of your sensitive data. You should want it protected, even if it’s not in your direct control. Getting started with SaaS data security involves adhering to basic SaaS cybersecurity practices, understanding your vendor’s data protection policies, knowing where all your data is in the SaaS landscape, and implementing effective data governance policies. 

Suridata can be a valuable tool for achieving your SaaS data security objectives. It monitors SaaS usage and flags suspicious activity that could signal the start of a data breach. It also monitors where your data has been stored and who has access to it in your SaaS environment. These and other functions help you establish a robust SaaS security posture, including solid data protection. Learn more or request a demo today.

You can’t spell SharePoint without “share.” This word represents the best and worst that this enduring, top-rated platform offers. Used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, Microsoft SharePoint natively integrates into the Microsoft 365 system and is renowned for its custom intranet portals, document repositories, and team collaboration spaces. 

Nearly 65% of Sharepoint customers adopted SharePoint Online instead of on-premise, reiterating how valuable this tool can be for collaboration and productivity. But there’s a downside to SharePoint’s exciting features: they make you more vulnerable to security risks. 

Sensitive data stored in SharePoint can be subject to severe security attacks when access controls and third-party integrations are misconfigured. While Microsoft offers built-in security features, it’s up to each organization to take control of its SaaS integrations and ensure that teams are leveraging SharePoint effectively without compromising security. 

What are SharePoint’s Security risks?

SharePoint’s attack surface is as extensive and inviting as its deployment scope. The essence of SharePoint—that any user can get permission to set up data repositories and share data externally in seemingly infinite permutations—poses many challenges for SaaS security. The bigger the implementation, the more users, and the greater the variety of SharePoint instances, the more insecure the SharePoint environment becomes. 

One of the most severe SharePoint vulnerabilities relates to the potential to have too many SharePoint administrators, or “Group Owners,” as they are known. Group Owners can designate who is a “Member” and a “Guest” of a SharePoint Group, which dictates their access to data. Within a SharePoint Group, the Group Owner can further establish policies on data access across the organization. If there are too many Group Owners for SharePoint admins to track, the potential for data leakage becomes worrisome. 

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Like all browser-based apps, SharePoint is vulnerable to threats like cross-site scripting (XSS), misconfigured security settings, and identity-related attacks. External connections are particularly troublesome. With potentially every user in an organization able to share documents with the outside world, it’s almost inevitable that sensitive data will get into the wrong hands.

The challenges of managing SharePoint security 

SharePoint security is challenging due to the complexity and scale of most deployments. In theory, you can define and enforce security policies that protect data held in SharePoint. However, in reality, there are invariably way too many SharePoint groups and people involved to make policy enforcement feasible. At the same time, excessive moves to restrain SharePoint use in the name of security restrict the collaboration that SharePoint aims to facilitate.

A SharePoint security challenge is knowing where data is stored and who can access it, as there is no feasible way to track this manually. In addition, organizational churn inevitably leads to “zombie” SharePoint groups and data repositories that no one knows anything about and doesn’t have the time to investigate. Such SharePoint sprawl often gets ignored, leading to data leakage risks.

So, what does it take to make SharePoint more secure? SharePoint offers basic cyber hygiene and security policies, like requiring complex passwords. Part of these are general Microsoft security practices applicable to the broader Microsoft Windows/Office ecosystem that is standard in almost every organization. However, organizations are responsible for managing their SaaS security posture – their integrations with SaaS apps like SharePoint and the array of security gaps that may arise within these connections. 

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Locking down SharePoint security: 7 steps to take now

1. Make sure you’re totally on top of your sharing 

Given that sharing is the heart of SharePoint, one of the most important steps you can take to secure SharePoint is to get on top of how sharing occurs in your environment. For example, your SharePoint Group Owners and members can freely share files inside the organization by default. This may improve operational efficiencies, but it’s not an optimal security procedure. Instead, a good practice is to limit sharing by changing permissions so that only site owners can share files. 

If you share files externally through SharePoint, you should track your permissions carefully. As major companies like Target have learned the hard way, you can’t ensure that outside companies will diligently protect your data or access to your network. The best practice is to turn off SharePoint’s External Sharing feature, which enables users to invite external users to access content. Turning on External Sharing when necessary is possible, but it’s best to keep it off by default.

Limit sharing by domain and designate forbidden domains if you must share externally. For instance, you can prohibit users from sharing SharePoint files with people who have Gmail addresses.

On another front, you should prevent users from synchronizing their devices with SharePoint document libraries. This “Doc Library Sync” puts SharePoint files on users’ laptops, enabling them to accidentally delete files (i.e., data loss) if they “clean” their C Drives. 

2. Track and secure third-party integrations

It is possible to integrate SharePoint with third-party applications using software plugins. For example, users can link their SharePoint groups with Box.com or Salesforce.com. While good for productivity, this practice may expose SharePoint data to the risk of breach. Malicious actors can exploit the plugin to gain unauthorized access. 

The breadth of third-party integrations across a large company’s SharePoint environment makes tracking and securing these integrations difficult. SSPM platforms like Suridata can automatically scan for the use of third-party plugins and alert system admins to plugins that create risk exposure.

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3. Implement robust access control policies

Adequate SharePoint security relies on controlling who can access Groups and files. Under the Shared Security Model, Microsoft provides several built-in security controls enabling you to, for instance, create user roles in Microsoft Active Directory that map to SharePoint permissions. The challenge here is to administer these roles, as it’s easy to fall behind and allow users to retain access they no longer need. 

SSPM solutions like Suridata provide a way to escape this trap through automated scanning of data access rights. You should also implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) to limit access to people with company email addresses. MFA is a potent tool, but it’s necessary to moderate its use so it doesn’t interfere with productivity. It can be frustrating if a user has to enter an authentication code repeatedly while inside the corporate or virtual private network (VPN). 

4. Ensure you’re assigning link-sharing permissions securely

SharePoint provides several levels of link-sharing permissions. In the SharePoint Admin Center, you can adjust your default settings and create a link for each file, which you can then share with the relevant people via email. This permission helps implement the principle of least privilege and strengthen your zero-trust strategy, limiting link access to only those who need it. 

You could make it the default policy that employees can only share SharePoint links with internal people, allow specific people to share links, or permit people who already have access to the links to share them. Alternatively, you can assign “View only” permission instead of “Edit” to restrict access controls. 

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5. Protect and manage your data 

At its root, SharePoint is a place to store data for use in collaboration and workflows. Data security becomes a significant issue when users add, edit, share, or delete files. Encryption is one essential countermeasure, and it’s a great practice to apply SharePoint’s native encryption whenever possible. 

Data retention is another area where you can take action to protect data in SharePoint. You can set up data retention policies that enable users to specify how long data will remain in SharePoint before being automatically deleted. This control prevents people from uploading files to SharePoint and forgetting about them—leading to sensitive data simply sitting around for potentially unauthorized users to view.

However, the reality is that SharePoint data is so voluminous and varied that it’s impossible to manage and secure it actively. Instead, it makes sense to use an automated SaaS data security solution like Suridata to run continuous automated scans to identify sensitive data in SharePoint and flag it for removal by admins. 

6. Implement SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM)

While SharePoint Online contains a collection of security controls, robust security requires a dedicated external security solution. There are simply too many variables to rely on SharePoint alone. 

SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) tools have automated processes that monitor the usage of SaaS apps. They continuously analyze security configurations, such as third-party plug-ins and access permissions, ensuring that every infrastructure layer is covered. A comprehensive SSPM tool also recommends remediation processes that let security teams quickly activate vulnerability management workflows and mitigate risks in near real time. 

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7. Deploy a SaaS Security Detection and Response (SSDR) solution

Security Detection and Response (SSDR) solutions are the ideal complement to SSPM, observing SharePoint activity and flagging anomalous user behavior that suggests the presence of a threat. For example, if a user repeatedly attempts to download data to a location outside a company’s regular geographic area, that’s a sign of a breach. SSDR tools like Suridata can alert admins and shut off access to that user – preventing security breaches promptly without impacting operations. 

Suridata combines the best of both worlds by providing SSPM and SSDR in a single solution. It offers complete monitoring of all your SaaS apps and the depth of detection and analysis you need to establish a strong security posture for SharePoint. 

Onward to a Secure SharePoint Environment

SharePoint security is neither intuitive nor straightforward. While the software has its security controls, its broad usage and connectivity with external entities make it imperative to take specific steps to lock it down. These include protecting data through encryption and retention policies, carefully managing access, and limiting sharing of files and links. With SSPM and SSDR, you can take advantage of all SharePoint offers without worrying about the security risks that come with it.

Learn more or schedule a demo to see how Suridata can help secure your SharePoint environment.

Napoleon would have made a great hacker. Now the subject of a historical action thriller, the Emperor once allegedly said, “Never interfere with the enemy while he is in the process of making a mistake.” So it goes in cybersecurity, as well. Some of the worst data breaches occur because of simple mistakes in configuration. These errors can be particularly problematic in SaaS environments, where every user can choose their security configurations— potentially leading to a wide range of unintended vulnerabilities. 

SaaS misconfigurations could be responsible for up to 63% of security incidents. People you don’t control or even know about are making decisions (or forgetting to) about configurations that protect your most sensitive data. Securing your SaaS applications should be on top of any business’s priority list, especially as cloud and SaaS become increasingly prevalent. 

What is a Security Misconfiguration?

Security misconfigurations can be a source of SaaS security risks in two distinct ways. The first involves functional settings that affect security. For example, a SaaS-based storage service’s default settings might enable anyone worldwide to access its store files. The second is specifically related to security settings. A security tool might have several configuration possibilities, allowing you to choose whether or not to, for instance, encrypt data or mandate multi-factor authentication. Each of these has implications for your security posture. 

It’s important to underscore that security misconfigurations can occur due to mistakes, negligence, or deficient policies, so human rather than technical factors. Suppose more than one department can set up SaaS security settings on the same SaaS app, for example. That’s inviting a misconfiguration vulnerability—especially if no one can monitor the security settings across the organization. 

Specifics will vary depending on each company, but most security misconfigurations arise from settings for data protection, encryption, user identity and authentication, and administrative privileges. 

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The Capital One incident in 2019 is arguably the most notorious misconfiguration data breach. In that case, a hacker exploited a misconfigured cloud firewall, assigned themselves AWS S3 bucket permissions, and exfiltrated over 100,000,000 customer credit applications. Numerous comparable episodes have occurred since then, leading to data breaches, penetration of networks, and phishing attacks.

5 Most Common Security Misconfiguration Vulnerabilities and Their Mitigation

1. Misconfigured Access Controls

The question of “who can access what?” is the core of many security controls. When access controls are not configured securely, organizations face significant risk exposure, opening doors for malicious actors to compromise identities and view, damage, or exfiltrate data. 

Examples of misconfigured access controls include the use of default passwords, abandoned accounts, and out-of-date administrative access permissions. Alternatively, not requiring MFA can let hackers exploit “password spraying” attacks to gain entry into systems – precisely what happened with the infamous attack on Citrix’s IMAP-based cloud email server. 

To detect misconfigured access controls, you can use an automated system that scans for IAM weaknesses, such as unused accounts and default password settings. For SaaS, solutions like Suridata’s SaaS security posture management (SSPM) can monitor access control configurations across multiple SaaS apps. This is essential today because most companies depend on hundreds of SaaS apps. 

2. Third-Party Configuration Risks/Unsecured APIs

Staying on top of secure configurations for a single application is challenging. But things get more complicated when you start connecting applications and growing your number of third-party configurations. Consider what happens when integrating two or more SaaS apps using external plugins. For example, you can link your customer relationship management (CRM) system with your email and SaaS-based file storage solution to improve productivity. However, each of these plugins has to be configured for security, and in many cases, this simply isn’t possible. 

The decisions about security settings may be up to end users who have no idea how to set up secure configurations. Or, the plug-in itself could also be no longer supported by the vendor and grow increasingly insecure over time—but you may not realize this until it’s too late.

A related insecure configuration risk arises with application programming interfaces (APIs) integrating applications and data sources. While APIs enable streamlined, low-cost integration that’s a boon to productivity and agility, they can also expose your organization to risk. 

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API configuration errors at the Texas Department of Insurance led to an information breach on nearly 2 million Texans in 2022. The data included birth dates, addresses, phone numbers, and Social Security numbers. The attack occurred because a web application was configured with an authorization flaw, resulting in a broken function level authorization (BFLA) attack on an API. In this kind of attack, the hacker sends a query to an API endpoint that should not, in theory, respond to it—but does, leaking sensitive information in the process. 

API security platforms can help mitigate these types of risks. They can automatically scan applications and flag vulnerable APIs. 

3. Default Configurations

The process of installing software requires choosing various security settings. However, default security configurations often remain in place if alternatives are not selected, which can lead to risk exposure. For example, the default settings might allow you to keep weak passwords or specific firewall ports open, and neither is great for security.

If the software in question is a single, centralized application installed and managed on-premises by the IT department, the chance of an insecure default configuration is lower. With cloud and SaaS, things get more complicated, as IT and security teams often lack visibility into the state of default settings. Manual auditing processes and employee training are helpful up to a point. However, it’s best to use an automated solution that scans and flags insecure default settings to mitigate risk properly. 

4. Insecure Data Storage Configurations

Data is vulnerable both when it’s moving and when it’s at rest. The security configurations of data storage are, therefore, critical to data security. Access controls matter, but encryption is arguably the most important countermeasure. However, encryption depends on configuration, and storage managers often get it wrong. 

Even the US Army’s Intelligence and Security Command unintentionally allowed a sensitive database—including top secret files—to be stored on Amazon S3 without configuring the cloud storage array for adequate user authentication.

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Encryption is relatively easy to manage when an organization employs a few on-premises storage solutions. However, moving data into the cloud gets much more challenging, as employees can set up cloud storage using SaaS storage solutions without informing the IT department or security team. 

Suridata can scan the entire SaaS environment to detect the location of data and its associated security configurations. The SSPM platform can flag data at risk and notify admins to fix the problem before a breach occurs.

5. Improperly Configured File and Directory Permissions

Hackers can sometimes guess file and directory names, in which case they can gather system information to orchestrate attacks. They might discover and download your compiled code, for example, and reverse engineer them to reveal your source code. This is, in part, a configuration issue. You can configure directory servers with strict control over access permissions and make it impossible to use easy-to-guess files and directory names. 

Getting Secure with Your Configurations

As we’ve seen, many types of security misconfigurations can expose your organization to cyber risk. Even the more innocent vulnerabilities can lead to serious security breaches – all it takes is a hacker to exploit a small mistake with default settings, a weak password, or a forgotten open port. SaaS environments are especially vulnerable to such vulnerabilities as the complexity of hundreds of integrations makes for poor visibility and a lack of control over your system. 

Mitigation is possible with the right technology. Platforms like Suridata combine powerful SSPM with SSDR capabilities, helping you monitor your SaaS apps and quickly remediate vulnerabilities as they arise. Suridata scans vulnerabilities automatically and provides you with detailed findings, their priority based on risk level, and automated remediation guidance. Get a demo to learn more.    

Have you ever woken up at 2:00 AM, worried if your company’s most sensitive data was safe? Or perhaps you worried about whether you did everything required to protect privacy laws and avoid unimaginable violations.

From HR to finance departments, companies run most of their workloads on third-party software. While there is no turning back on SaaS, we also can’t ignore that it opens up a can of security worms for your business. 55% of organizations experienced a SaaS security event in the last two years. And to make matters worse, mitigating these issues often falls outside the capabilities of traditional security tools. 

But that’s what SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) is here for. SSPM solutions give IT and security teams visibility into the security posture of their sprawling SaaS ecosystems—detecting vulnerabilities and, in some cases, offering automated remediation – both essentials in combating increasingly frequent SaaS threats. 

What is SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM)?

SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) is a combination of tools, processes, and practices that aim to improve the security posture of SaaS environments. Security posture concerns an organization’s ability to defend its networks, information systems, and other digital resources. 

An organization that uses SaaS apps needs SSPM to protect its data and business operations. The average company now uses over a hundred SaaS apps (that they know of… which is a whole other problem). These apps store corporate data in ways that may not be secure—which tends to be opaque to IT and security teams. 

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In contrast to traditional on-premises applications and databases, which security teams can relatively quickly defend and monitor, SaaS apps are freestanding. They’re operated by third parties, offering a wide latitude in security configuration to individual users. 

Implemented correctly, an SSPM solution helps mitigate the security risks inherent in SaaS and unique to the SaaS architecture. It extends an organization’s security posture into SaaS. Benefits include a lower risk of data breach and leakage from SaaS and less chance of SaaS compliance problems.

The challenges of implementing SSPM 

Making SSPM work can be challenging, primarily due to the sheer scale of most SaaS environments. If a company has five SaaS apps, admins can check each for compliance. If there are a hundred apps, however, admins will be overloaded and unable to check for compliance consistently. Establishing and maintaining visibility over configurations, user access, data placement, and third-party integrations can be challenging. 

A parallel problem comes from SaaS apps’ rapid development cycles. Each SaaS vendor will update its app regularly, perhaps as often as every few weeks. Each new version has the potential to break security controls and integrations, so the third-party plugin that was secure last week may no longer be. The plugins may also create security risks due to frequent updates and neglect. 

Only 10% of companies continuously conduct SaaS security configuration checks, and 5% don’t scan for misconfigurations. Without multidimensional visibility and monitoring, it is possible to miss threats and vulnerabilities that can negatively affect the SaaS security posture.

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Compliance requirements can change, too, which may lead to specific SaaS configurations and data storage decisions causing compliance problems. Alternatively, SaaS providers may move your customers’ Personal Identifiable Data (PII) data between regions that don’t allow such moves, and you’ll be hard-pressed to know about it. 

There’s also the “shadow SaaS” issue, where employees sign up for SaaS apps independently and store corporate data on them without getting IT or security permission. This is more common than people realize and can be a significant security headache as it creates invisible risk exposure. A good SSPM solution will be able to scan for shadow SaaS and flag it for intervention by IT. 

7 Building Blocks of SaaS Security Posture Management

All effective SSPM solutions should offer a high degree of flexibility, scalability, and visibility into your SaaS environment. But there are other vital factors to consider: 

1. Automation

All SSPM solutions feature some degree of automation; the more automation, the better. With each SaaS app potentially having hundreds of settings and a user base that could span thousands of devices, human admins simply cannot keep up with the SaaS security workload. Ideally, teams will be free to analyze complicated SaaS security situations that arise while the bulk of security alerts and remediations occur automatically. This is possible with Suridata, which automates some of its SaaS security remediations, such as misconfigurations and version changes. 

2. Misconfiguration discovery and remediation

Misconfigurations are common in a SaaS environment and can lead to risk exposure. For example, if users keep the default settings on certain file-sharing SaaS apps, data stored on them may be accessible worldwide. An SSPM solution must offer deep visibility into all configurations, settings, and any built-in security controls that affect SaaS security posture. With the ability to discover SaaS misconfigurations, an SSPM solution can also identify SaaS apps that are not using multi-factor authentication (MFA) in critical accounts. It can flag unencrypted file sharing, which might cause risk exposure in certain use cases.  

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3. Detection and remediation of insecure third-party integrations

Employees who use third-party plugins to integrate their SaaS apps with others can inadvertently expose sensitive data to unauthorized access, among other risks. The integration may seem innocuous, such as linking a SaaS-based customer relationship management (CRM) solution with a SaaS email program. The problem is that the email program will treat the CRM as a user who does not need to be authenticated after the initial connection is established. A malicious actor can exploit this connection channel to access the email account. 

SSPM solutions like Suridata offer a countermeasure. They provide an overview of each third-party integration’s source and give admins detailed information about all the various permissions granted via the plugin. This way, teams can detect “overprivileged” users—potentially shutting off their access until their access rights can be reviewed. 

4. IAM and user monitoring

Your SaaS security posture benefits from your team’s firm understanding of who is who and who can access what. Indeed, almost any security breach is possible without such control and will be challenging to detect or respond to. For these reasons, an SSPM solution must integrate with IAM solutions and other access control tools that enable zero trust security, such as privileged access management (PAM) suites. When combined with the SSPM solution’s user activity monitoring, the result is an effective countermeasure against SaaS penetrations by malicious actors. 

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5. Data exposure analysis 

The ability for end users to store data in hard-to-monitor or unknown SaaS locations represents a significant point of vulnerability and a source of compliance violations. An SSPM solution has to automatically scan for data stored in SaaS apps and detect threats; this process should work preventatively and forensically. The SSPM solution should identify corporate data that users have placed on SaaS apps and determine who has access to it and who can share it. If there is a breach, SSPM solutions like Suridata can analyze the impact on data sets stored on SaaS apps—recommending actions to limit the damage. 

6. Threat detection and response

Like other information systems, SaaS apps need protection that activates threat detection and response processes. SSPM solutions need to monitor all SaaS apps for suspicious activities, including, for instance, detecting a user who has logged in from a foreign country and attempted to download a great deal of data. Suridata offers this capability, along with automated alerts and other incident response tasks. 

7. SecOps integration

SSPM should be part of a broader security and IT management workflow set. A security alert regarding a SaaS app is like any other security alert – it must be routed to a human analyst and subject to a planned incident response plan or go through an automated response workflow. Either way, this can only happen if the SSPM solution is integrated with ticketing systems and security operations (SecOps) tools like security automation, orchestration, and response (SOAR) and ITDR platforms. 

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Given that the overring goal in SecOps is to minimize drains on people’s time, the SSPM solution will ideally support automated remediations. If the solution can fix a problem without human hands, that’s the best outcome. On a related front, the SSPM solution should prioritize SaaS security alerts—focusing analysts’ attention only on the most serious. The SSPM solution would also provide remediation guidance for each alert. The path to correcting a security problem may not be evident to everyone. Solutions like Suridata benefit from collective experience in SaaS security to guide security analysts in their remediation efforts.

Getting to a strong SaaS security posture

A robust SaaS security posture is attainable but will take a lot of groundwork and the right tools. SSPM solutions like Suridata can make your SaaS security journey much more seamless, offering you the automation capabilities to monitor all your SaaS apps, including the ones you didn’t even know your employees were using. With the detection and remediation of insecure third-party integrations, monitoring for anomalies, and integrating with IAM, you can mitigate many of the most severe threats affecting SaaS and the business operations that depend on it. To learn about Suridata’s SSPM solution, visit our demo page.