There’s a lot happening in your company’s SaaS app stack, but you’re not sure. You’ve got a strong hunch that there’s more happening in your company’s SaaS app stack than you’re aware of.
Is that one department still using Box, or are they working with something else now? How many instances of DocuSign are floating around your business? Better yet, who’s using what SaaS app and when?
Companies are implementing (and sometimes discarding) SaaS applications so quickly it’s often hard for security and IT teams to keep up.
There’s more complexity in your SaaS stack than ever before. Departments are relying more on SaaS apps to accomplish their business goals. But with the increase in SaaS adoption, there’s more complexity in your SaaS app stack. As a result, there’s less visibility and more security gaps.
SaaS management + CASBs = more visibility
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs) provide knowledge about SaaS apps, acting as a gatekeeper between users and SaaS providers. With CASBs, security teams can control how users access SaaS apps.
The caveat: Because CASBs are usually deployed as proxy or reverse-proxy solutions, they typically have a line of sight into select SaaS apps that security teams know about.
With the rate of change happening in your IT environments, you need more visibility into the SaaS stack across all departments.
That’s why combining SaaS management with a CASB solution empowers security and IT to manage the sprawl of SaaS apps. With both tools, you can protect known SaaS applications at the data and user access level, and identify unknown shadow SaaS applications.
SaaS management takes a comprehensive approach to answering critical questions for SaaS security, like:
- Am I aware of all the SaaS apps deployed throughout the company? How do I find users who aren’t accessing SaaS apps through company sanctioned authentication methods?
- Which SaaS apps are connected and process data from each other?
- Are my SaaS apps introducing vulnerabilities? Are they configured according to best practices and industry frameworks?
- Does my organization have any redundant SaaS applications and/or user licenses that should be deprecated?
Who’s coming and going
Onboarding and off-boarding employees is another challenge for security and IT teams. Employees coming into the fold need access to various apps, while those leaving need to be removed from them. Some employees may simply be transitioning to other departments, so their access to SaaS apps needs to be modified.
Even if your security and IT teams have automated workflows that revoke access to devices and apps, it may not be enough. Employees may still have access to shadow SaaS apps unknown to CASBs — and these apps may be processing sensitive company data.t.
Combining CASB and SaaS management gives you more visibility into the SaaS application landscape. You can close SaaS security gaps and tackle other challenges, like:
- Discovering orphaned and inactive SaaS user accounts
- Correlating user profiles against other sources
- Understanding SaaS provider risk
By having a combination of SaaS management and CASB, you can control the complexity in the sprawl of SaaS applications and the potential security risks that go along with them.
