GigaOm analysts highlight proactive SaaS security features and the platform’s ability to manage complex environments with a robust SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) solution.
With enterprises increasingly relying on SaaS applications to manage critical data and processes, secure productivity has become a crucial competitive advantage.
Taking proactive steps to secure sensitive SaaS data is now top-of-mind for many enterprises, especially in the wake of large-scale data breaches. But choosing a SaaS security vendor is a difficult task, and it can be challenging to identify the most critical features and use cases that your organization needs to protect itself. A useful first step in evaluating SaaS security vendors involves diving into the latest industry trends so that you get a better understanding of what core functionality your organization will need to stop the data breaches of tomorrow.
“SaaS applications are widely deployed, yet most SaaS environments are poorly secured since the risks and exposures in SaaS applications are underestimated or not well understood,” said Harold Byun, Chief Product Officer at AppOmni.
“We are proud to be recognized as a leader in the GigaOm Radar for SaaS Security Posture Management report. It validates AppOmni’s in-depth, scalable SaaS security solutions proven in hyper scale deployments supporting millions of users and AppOmni’s industry-leading threat research.”
— Harold Byun, Chief Product Officer, AppOmni
Excessive emphasis on proprietary tools and initial SaaS vendor credibility hinders SaaS risk evaluation
According to The State of SaaS Security 2024 Report, leaders understand the importance of securing their SaaS environments during the procurement phase, but vigilance erodes post-install, and maintaining continuous SaaS security is not consistently prioritized.
Common SaaS security risks include:
Misconfigurations and access management: Misconfigurations in SaaS applications, such as over-permissive access controls and excessive user permissions, pose significant risks by allowing unauthorized access to sensitive data. These can lead to SSO/MFA bypasses or service abuse.
Data leakage:SaaS environments frequently involve the transfer and storage of vast amounts of sensitive data, and insufficient data protection mechanisms can result in unauthorized data access or exfiltration. Data leakage, whether through intentional attacks like phishing or through inadvertent exposure via unsecured APIs, represents a mission-critical risk. This risk is exacerbated in complex SaaS environments where multiple third-party apps may access or transfer sensitive information.
Lack of visibility and compliance concerns: As organizations adopt more SaaS applications, they face challenges in maintaining visibility over their SaaS environment. Without adequate visibility, it’s challenging — and sometimes impossible — to identify or mitigate unusual activity or assess compliance with regulatory frameworks like NIST and CIS. A lack of visibility also makes it difficult to adequately respond to emerging threats, such as recently-discovered misconfigurations.
What does SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) entail?
The State of SaaS Security 2024 Report also uncovered that there is a generalized sense of confusion around SSPM as a product category. Many security practitioners and leaders indicated that SSPM (a component of a comprehensive SaaS security platform) is gaining traction as a technology, but a lack of standardized definitions, use cases, and capabilities around the technology results in varying levels of effectiveness when organizations deploy SaaS security solutions.
At AppOmni, we believe that SaaS security requires a proactive, depth-focused approach that goes beyond the standard ‘check the box’ SSPM capabilities offered by established Security Service Edge (SSE) vendors. While SSE vendors provide valuable technologies like Secure Web Gateways (SWGs), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs), and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), these solutions fall short in addressing the unique and complex security challenges of SaaS environments. SaaS security has specialized needs. AppOmni delivers deeper visibility, more comprehensive protection, and greater control for security teams, empowering them to stay ahead of emerging threats specific to SaaS applications.
To help organizations evaluate the native security functionality in their SaaS apps, AppOmni developed the Due Diligence Questionnaire (DDQ), which provides a framework to identify security gaps and address the inconsistent logging capabilities across SaaS APIs and audit logs that can lead to widespread SaaS security issues.
In addition to providing frameworks to help with native SaaS security issues, AppOmni also conducts in-depth SaaS security research on key SaaS apps, such as Oracle NetSuite, ServiceNow and Snowflake, to help identify emerging SaaS threats and protect our customers.
Case in point: Aaron Costello, AppOmni’s Chief of SaaS Security Research, recently uncovered extensive data exposure risks associated with ServiceNow‘s outdated configurations and misconfigured access controls in Knowledge Bases. AppOmni continuously collaborates with ServiceNow, and other vendors in the wake of threat research discoveries, to make SaaS a more secure operating environment for everyone.
In addition to our work with SaaS vendors, the AppOmni team also developed the open-source SaaS Event Maturity Matrix (EMM) framework to help cybersecurity teams assess and organize SaaS audit logging capabilities. By cataloging audit log sources and evaluating their alignment with security operations needs, the EMM helps security professionals understand the visibility, retention, and usability of logs from various SaaS platforms so that teams can build more effective threat monitoring and risk management.
Standardizing SSPM: The 2024 GigaOm Radar for SSPM
In GigaOm’s inaugural Radar Report for SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM), AppOmni was named a Leader and Fast Mover. We believe this recognition validates AppOmni’s status as the leader in SaaS Security and paves the way for future innovation in the SSPM marketplace.
AppOmni’s approach to SaaS security helps organizations maintain the integrity of their SaaS environments and the confidentiality of sensitive data stored in those environments. With the platform, enterprises can mitigate threats from nation-state adversaries, ransomware, and insider risks — all while safeguarding their businesses from costly disruptions and reputation risks.
“The tool has a great balance of features to support a wide range of SaaS security problems in one tool. AppOmni’s proactive SaaS protection capabilities pushed the tool into the Innovation half of the chart, showing an ability to bring new functionality to the core product regularly.” — GigaOm Radar for SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) 2024
AppOmni as a top performer in large-scale deployments
While GigaOm argues that AppOmni’s focus on large enterprises — defined in the report as organizations with over one thousand users — presents a challenge, we have a different interpretation.
AppOmni has been deployed by the largest global enterprises to secure hundreds of instances of SaaS apps within the organization. The AppOmni platform provides intuitive tools to manage policies, helps organizations stay ahead of SaaS threats and malicious activities with continuous monitoring and threat detection, and manages your SaaS attack surface through consistent identity security governance.
Since our founding, we’ve partnered with global enterprises and built the industry’s largest SaaS-specific security data set. This enables us to deliver automated, correlated detection and response, applying our expertise to deployments of any size.
Building the future of SaaS security, grounded in our SSPM roots
GigaOm’s recognition of AppOmni as a Leader in SSPM validates our advancement in SaaS security as the pioneer in SSPM. In addition to providing the foundational capabilities of SSPM, AppOmni’s capabilities expand into the broader domain of SaaS security by providing our customers with capabilities around identities, threat detection, and closed-loop Zero Trust Posture Management (ZTPM) for SaaS.
2024 GigaOm Radar for SSPM Report
SaaS environments are evolving, and so are the risks. Equip yourself with the knowledge to manage your SaaS applications effectively and secure your organization against potential threats.
