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6 Tips for Taking your SaaS Security to the Next Level

SaaS applications are an essential component in the business world across most industries. But while these solutions provide numerous benefits, they can also serve as a back door for threat actors.
Here’s 6 useful tips on how to improve your SaaS security:

1. Continuous Discovery

Without big-picture visibility into everything going on within your SaaS environment, like permissions that are granted to third party apps, or external user permissions not being revoked on a timely basis, and other user inconsistencies, the risks of a breach are very real.

“Without big-picture visibility into everything going on within your SaaS environment…the risks of a breach are very real.”

Consider other extenuating factors, like employees leaving the organization. While their SaaS accounts are typically closed upon their departure, there are often times that leftover or forgotten permissions remain, and former employees can continue accessing sensitive information without the organization being aware.

Continuous discovery, which means that permissions, connections, and other pertinent info within your SaaS environment are constantly scanned and analyzed, is crucial. You need continuous discovery for proper SaaS monitoring in order to make real-time decisions and remediations to avoid any possible breaches.

2. Stellar SaaS Security Posture

Your business’ SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) sets the foundation for how you’ll deal with the multiple challenges deriving from your internal SaaS use. An effective SSPM leverages insights and visibility into your SaaS environment, so that you can respond effectively, in real-time, to remediate issues and plan smarter for the future as your enterprise continues to grow. 

3. Engaged Employees: Your Secret Weapon

When planning your SaaS security strategy, it’s important that you don’t forget one of your most important resources – your people! If your employees are properly educated about SaaS security best practices, and understand how crucial SaaS security is for the wellbeing of your business, they can play a part in stopping exposures before they happen, if you so choose.

The solution is to encourage employees to make decisions relevant to their roles, such as educating them on when to revoke tokens, permissions, and shares, or justify and clarify their usage of specific apps. 

While this aspect of SaaS security might slip under the radar, it’s extremely important that you regularly review exposed data within your SaaS apps. Sharing data with external contractors has become a regular occurrence for scores of companies and is easily solved with Wing without impacting the workflow.

But because this data is often sensitive in nature, such as your business’ financials, customer information, and intellectual property, it’s critical that data be shared with as few people as possible. Data should only be exposed on a need-to-know basis, with minimal permissions, and those privileges should be revoked as soon as the work is done. That’s why you need a tool like Wing Security that allows you to follow up and regulate, with big-picture visibility into sharing statuses within your SaaS apps.

4. Shadow IT: A Hidden Risk

The term “Shadow IT” refers to all the informational technology (IT) that is being deployed by departments and teams within your business, outside of your central IT department. The reason why Shadow IT is so important is because it’s typically not under the direct supervision of your IT team. Your IT team will have very clear protocols for what security measures should be taken, what apps are approved for use in the organization, as well as what is forbidden. Shadow IT bypasses these protocols.

That means employees who may be less well-versed in SaaS security best practices are using various apps, and with just one click, could potentially grant blanket permissions and access that create exposures and breach points.

Most SaaS applications fall into the Shadow IT category, as the majority of businesses allow their teams to use relevant apps for their day-to-day work operations. At Wing, we devote a significant amount of attention and resources to ensuring that your everyday SaaS apps, like Slack, Salesforce, Google Office and more, are safe. 

“Most SaaS applications fall into the Shadow IT category”

5. Why the old CASB approach is no longer enough

The traditional CASB approach was to focus on the interaction between the organizational network with the internet, by utilizing a proxy or an agent that monitors on-prem interactions with the outside world. 

But in today’s world, which is rife with hybrid environments and a complicated SaaS application network that often doesn’t directly involve the organizational network at all, this old approach is no longer sufficient. 

In order to cover those critical App2App integrations and protect your organization from threat actors, you must consistently monitor and follow the activities and connections between 3rd party apps used by your organization. 

6. Elevated SaaS Security, In One Solution

The key to ensuring that all of these moving parts receive the right amount of attention lies in embracing a SaaS security solution that covers all the bases.

Wing’s SaaS security provides you with continuous discovery, so that you always remain on top of everything happening within your estate – even if your organization uses hundreds or thousands of apps. We have a deep knowledge of thousands of SaaS apps, and can supply  your security team with crucial information to help guide them in decision-making. Wing offer both at-a-glance and deep insights into the security risk and classification of SaaS apps, along with the tools that allow you to easily revoke risky apps’ access to your organizational environment. 

Our  SaaS security score rates the SaaS apps in your SaaS estate on many factors. These individual apps would also have to adhere to many security compliances themselves where MFA is required. These apps would inherently be more secure and would earn a higher security ranking, depending on which factors are important to your organization. 

Not only that, but you can involve and educate your end users as much, or as little, as your organization prefers. This is greatly beneficial to security leaders, as not only can it reduce their workload, it can also make it clearer as to why employees need certain apps. This all contributes to a strong security culture in your organization.

Put the controls for SaaS back in your hands

Wing puts the power back in your hands, by automatically scanning, detecting, and notifying you about data that’s externally shared. Wing offers automated and quick options for remediating sharing risks, like removing permissions after a set period of time or after a period in which it hasn’t been accessed. This customizable setting allows your employees or security leaders to take an active step in determining whether permissions should be removed, with the option of letting them manually review when sharing was last used or granted. If these permissions aren’t reviewed or revoked within a certain period by an employee, you can automatically shut them down.

Our complete approach provides you with critical automated SaaS security, including  customized notifications that fit your business’ unique needs, App2App automated discovery and remediation and more. Instead of devoting countless hours and manpower to handling everything manually, Wing gives you peace of mind and a highly effective tool in your SaaS security arsenal.


Want to see for yourself? Book a demo today to learn more about how Wing can elevate your SaaS security.



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