SaaS Applications and Hidden Security Gaps that Companies Often Miss
Behind the convenience of SaaS Applications lies a hidden labyrinth of security risks that you might not be aware of. As SaaS apps increasingly permeate every corner of business operations, they bring with them not only powerful tools but also subtle, often overlooked security vulnerabilities. Gartner warns, “By 2025, 99% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault”. This blog dives into the less obvious yet high-stakes security challenges lurking within SaaS environments.
The Stats on SaaS
The SaaS market in Germany has impressive growth projections of 18.54% from 2024 to 2029. Companies continue to adopt SaaS applications like apps because these platforms provide flexible, subscription-based access to critical business tools without the overhead of on-premises infrastructure.
But on the flip side of this optimism, there are increasing security concerns to consider. One recent 2024 report found that 31 percent of organizations experienced a SaaS data breach in the previous 12 months, which was a 5 percent increase in such incidents. Another interesting finding of note from a separate survey is that 34% of respondents admitted they didn’t know how many SaaS apps were deployed in their company.
SaaS Applications Hidden Security Gaps
Shadow IT and Unauthorized SaaS Integrations
Shadow IT includes the use of SaaS tools by employees without first getting specific approval from whoever is in charge of IT. To put the prevalence of this risk category in context, 67% of employees at Fortune 1000 companies use unapproved SaaS applications.
There are many reasons that one of your employees might decide to use a SaaS app without asking IT first. One such reason is simple convenience—for instance, someone might find it handier to upload documents to Google Drive rather than use corporate-approved file-sharing tools. Sometimes, employees are simply unaware of the potential security implications and assume that freely accessible tools are harmless.
Whatever the underlying motivations, the risks are pivotal to pinpoint:
- Without IT oversight, employees might store sensitive information (e.g., client data, proprietary files) in third-party SaaS apps that don’t meet your security standards. If these apps have weak data encryption or rely on shared infrastructure, they become vulnerable to unauthorized access or even exposure in data breaches.
- Unauthorized SaaS apps lack monitoring for suspicious login attempts, data exfiltration, or unusual patterns of access. Without these alerts, IT is unable to detect when malicious actors are attempting to or have already accessed sensitive information.
- Unauthorized apps might store data in regions that don’t comply with GDPR or other regional data protection standards. This can result in accidental non-compliance, exposing your business to legal penalties.
- IT has no way to enforce policies like multifactor authentication (MFA) on these platforms. And with it remaining common for people to reuse passwords or create weak passwords, these accounts are at higher risk of compromise.
Potential solutions here include using cloud access security brokers (CASBs) and security information and event management (SIEM) solutions to detect unsanctioned apps in use across your network. Also, regular training can highlight the risks of shadow IT, and strict policies can discourage unauthorized app usage.
Identity and Access Management (IAM) Weaknesses
Many SaaS apps come with default IAM settings that might not meet security requirements. When companies deploy SaaS apps quickly to meet urgent needs or accommodate remote work demands, IT teams might leave default IAM settings active to save time. Sometimes, companies assume that SaaS providers’ default IAM settings are secure, especially with well-known vendors.
However, these defaults are often designed for convenience rather than strict security, which creates hidden SaaS security risks like:
- Overprivileged accounts, where users get broad permissions by default and gain excessive access to sensitive resources.
- Many SaaS applications expose data and functionality through APIs, which are frequently authenticated through user accounts or service accounts with specific permissions. If IAM policies for API access are lax, attackers can exploit these endpoints to access sensitive data or escalate privileges.
- SaaS apps that don’t support federated identity management make it challenging for you to enforce centralized policies and track user activity, especially as SaaS adoption grows.
Risk reduction strategies here include using role-based access controls to assign the minimum necessary permissions based on users’ roles, making MFA a requirement for all SaaS apps, and centralizing management using a provider (e.g., Okta, Azure AD) that integrates with your SaaS platforms.
Embedded Third-Party Integrations with Unverified Permissions
Many SaaS apps integrate with third-party tools to expand functionality and streamline workflows, but each integration potentially brings extra, often hidden permissions that can go unchecked. These permissions might grant access to sensitive areas, such as contacts, files, or communications, without full transparency.
For example, HR and payroll platforms like Workday or ADP often integrate with financial software like QuickBooks or NetSuite to streamline salary calculations and expense tracking. This integration might require access to employee PII and payroll details, stored within both systems and used for generating payroll reports, reimbursements, and audits. Untracked data movement can lead to accidental data leaks if an integration exposes payroll data to unauthorized parties.
SaaS apps often request broad access during the initial integration setup (kind of like how many apps on your phone ask for several permissions that you might not think they’d need), assuming users want maximum functionality. However, companies rarely revisit these permissions, which leaves gaps.
To help reduce this SaaS security risk, make it a routine practice to review and audit the permissions granted to all third-party integrations. Focus especially on high-risk apps that handle sensitive data. Also, set up monitoring for API calls and data access logs between SaaS applications.
Testing to Find SaaS Application Risks
These sources of SaaS security risks are often insidious and go unnoticed for months at a time. To root them out, consider the valuable role of external penetration testing services. In these tests, a team of security experts conducts comprehensive assessments of your IT infrastructure, simulating real-world attacks to uncover hidden SaaS security gaps that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.
DIESEC’s pen testing services cover the full gamut of penetration testing types. We can specifically target your cloud environment and help shore up its security by uncovering hard-to-find gaps and vulnerabilities in SaaS configurations.