SaaS sprawl refers to the uncontrolled adoption and utilization of Software as a Service applications across an organization. SaaS sprawl occurs as a result of the easy onboarding and availability of SaaS services. Different departments or individual employees are easily able to make independent decisions about the choice of SaaS tools that they need to adopt, and without centralized control and management over the SaaS environment, an organization can easily have a growing number of different SaaS applications that lack sufficient security standards. This can create security challenges for IT and security teams who need to monitor the SaaS stack.
The impact of SaaS sprawl on security, cost, and operational efficiency is huge. SaaS sprawl causes financial waste through duplicate or redundant apps and unused licenses. This also leads to operational inefficiencies due to the frustratingly difficult task of weeding through and training in the use of multiple tools serving similar functions. To truly solve these issues, organizations need a centralized way like SaaS security posture management (SSPM) to manage SaaS sprawl effectively – approving, and regularly auditing applications against business objectives and security.