It is a redundant statement by now, but there is no better way to start a blog on anything involving SaaS: Businesses are increasingly using SaaS deployments for various reasons. However, as SaaS usage has increased, so have the associated risks. You see, with great capabilities come great risks.
What are the risks?
Shadow IT is a risk that security teams have to fight every day. While there are apps like Salesforce or Microsoft 365 that the organizational IT teams can manage, there are also apps that the IT teams can have a hand in purchasing and vetting, but granting access is not at their level. Then there are apps such as GenAI clients that are bought and managed by employees. In such a chaotic atmosphere, having full visibility into your network is compulsory; there is no option. Because this chaos has other extremely dangerous angles that can be bad for the companies.
Vulnerable Visibilities
On-premises deployments offer greater control over the network environment. Visibility means the assets utilization, and who was accessing it, enabling better visibility. Introduction of SaaS has queered the pitch. Now the environment becomes much more complicated, SecOps personnel must account for various types of assets. These include apps (both sanctioned and unsanctioned but are department-specific) and their update statuses. They should also map data flow between applications using sensitive data. They need to implement extensive ID mapping to link accounts to identity providers to reduce the risk of unsanctioned logins. They should also check for license statuses. They should also map which third parties have access to the organization’s cloud assets and what kind of access they have. These checks are essential, as a partially mapped environment can quickly become a security and/or compliance nightmare. The risk associated with third parties especially poses a grave threat to organizational assets.
Consequences of consequences
Third-party connections are inevitable with the adoption of SaaS, which in itself is practically a redundant sentence for anyone remotely familiar with the technology. But it is needed to see the possible risks along with the benefits. A lot of critical apps rely on integrations with third parties. These include HR tools feeding the payroll and vendors such as MSSPs with admin-level access for functions like patching and monitoring, and vendors handling critical tasks like identity and access monitoring. Each of them can be used as an attack vector. We have already talked about how such third parties have been used to launch devastating attacks. However, we need to remember that times are changing. A strict lockdown of every app or integration may be a remedy that is worse than the disease. Such heavy-handed enforcement can lead to the phenomenon of Shadow AI, among other riskier workarounds.
Why SaaS visibility matters?
SaaS and third-party visibility are critical for CISOs as they affect the following:
Incident response speed: Visibility allows for quickly seeing what systems can be affected if a third-party vendor is compromised and taking immediate action for mitigation.
Cost factors: Visibility allows discontinuation of unused apps and licenses, helping free up budget and reduce potential exposure.
Regulatory compliance: The most inevitable one and the one most would love to stay on the right side of. Norms like GDPR and HIPAA expect companies to provide detailed access reports and logs to the auditors.
Some more benefits
In a SaaS environment, you need user visibility, vendor visibility, AND application visibility to ensure that the loop is fully closed. Real-time visibility into the actions of internal and external users will also allow shifting to proactive risk mitigation from reactive security. How can this visibility be achieved?
- Behavioral baselining: Define and implement strict normal usage patterns for employees and vendors.
- Anomaly detection: The logical second step. Ensure anomalous behavior gets flagged and escalated for immediate action.
- Access creep prevention: Ensure privileged access is immediately revoked when it is no longer required.
Conclusion:
As SaaS adoption grows, so does the need for increased oversight into internal and third-party actors. A spate of breaches this year shows the critical need for vendor visibility and including this visibility as part of the core SaaS security strategy, not as an afterthought. QKS Group security analyst Aiyaz Ahmad sums it up: “The SaaS challenge isn’t about losing control, it’s about shifting the control plane. Security teams must move from infrastructure oversight to continuous monitoring of apps, identities, and third-party access. With tools like SSPM and CASB, SaaS environments can actually provide stronger visibility than many legacy setups, if enterprises choose to govern them correctly.”