How to Secure Your SaaS Applications
167 billion U.S. dollars.
That’s how much revenue the global SaaS market generated in 2022, according to Statista.
Clearly, Software as a Service is here to stay. But so too are bad actors, who continue to grow more and more sophisticated.
So, how do you ensure that mission critical software your organization uses is free of vulnerabilities, while also enabling your teams to work efficiently?
Here are 5 actions you can take to safeguard your SaaS application security, starting today.
1. Data Encryption
Encryption helps protect your data.
Not only should you encrypt your Saas application data at rest, but also in transit in the cloud. You may even be required to encrypt certain data, such as personal identifiable information, healthcare information, financial information, or any other sensitive data that may be stored in the cloud.
2. Modern Authentication Protocols
You should disable the use of legacy authentication protocols, as Jon Whelan notes in “7 Steps to Stronger SaaS Security.” That’s because, in his words, “The majority of compromising sign-in attempts come from legacy authentication”. What’s more, even if you’ve enabled stronger authentication protocols such as multifactor authentication, there’s still a chance that a bad actor could still bypass these protocols, authenticating themselves using a legacy protocol.
3. Continuous Monitoring & RBAC
You should continually monitor both user activity and data sharing.
Whelan, cited above, underscores the importance of keeping an eye out for password spraying and excessive failures as well as monitoring for compromised accounts in threat intelligence feeds.
Cynet, meanwhile, recommends “checking how users access and use SaaS resources”.
Improper or overbroad user permissioning can create security risks. This is why using rule-based-access-control (RBAC) and the “principle of least privilege” is a recommended best-practice in SaaS cyber security.
It can help protect you against insecure application programming interfaces (APIs).
4. Establish Organizational Protocols for “Shadow IT”
In today’s increasingly complex work world, more and more of your team members are likely to work remotely.
This presents many security challenges, such as employees working on public Wi-Fi and using personal devices. The latter is what’s often referred to as “Shadow IT”, or, as ISACA notes, the “systems, devices, applications, and services accessed and used by employees or departments without the knowledge, explicit approval, or oversight of the IT, information security, and legal teams”.
While organizations can’t vet user’s personal devices, they can do the following, as Cloud Security Alliance mentions:
- Build a comprehensive company-wide policy around the use of personal devices— and make it clear to team members across all organizational levels
- Discover shadow IT assets
- Empower employees with the right tools
- Leverage security basics
- Educate your workforce about the importance of software as a service security and data protection
5. Data Backup & Recovery
Using SaaS applications is convenient for businesses.
But it also often provides them with less control or even visibility into their data. This can sometimes result in unintended data loss or leakage.
IAM (Identity and Access Management) has evolved to become the new infrastructure of enterprises, but with that, has introduced a critical single point of failure. Many businesses rely on cloud-based systems and are responsible for safeguarding their data. Not only do security professionals face vulnerabilities like cyber threats, ransomware, etc, but human error and insider risk can even add to the list of areas that these risk professionals face.
The solution?
Backing up your data or using a backup and recovery tool that allows you to safeguard all of your sensitive data.
At Acsense, we empower organizations like yours to take back control of your IAM data.
We envision a future where enterprise identity management is resilient, uninterrupted, and protected.
We offer effortless data security, seamless continuity, and compliance mapping to ensure your organization is positioned to be secure on all fronts.
Ready to enhance your organization’s IAM resilience with cutting-edge technology?
