Locking Down SaaS Risk with SaaS Security Management

Each year, more workloads are moving to the cloud. Many enterprises are now turning to SaaS as the preferred means of deployment for mission-critical applications in finance, HR, CRM, and other areas. Despite rapid adoption of cloud-based architecture and services, organizations still harbor concerns about the security of their cloud environments.

The complexity, sheer volume of applications, and challenge of managing hundreds of security settings and configurations in multiple applications make it surprisingly easy to leave sensitive data accidentally exposed to the public internet. This paper seeks to explain how an emerging cloud security category, SaaS security management (SSM), can help organizations get a better handle on managing the risk of their overall cloud strategy. 

Key Findings 

• Applications are no longer confined to the corporate network. They can be run anywhere, which means the older perimeter-based security model is becoming less relevant. This implies that our security policies and enforcement points must be everywhere, too. 
• While most firms have some degree of cloud services deployed – and are arguably becoming more comfortable with putting critical data, applications and workloads in the cloud – security remains a top organizational concern. 
• SaaS applications are the most widely deployed form of cloud service. According to 451 Research’s Voice of the Enterprise data, more than three-quarters of organizations use SaaS applications. This suggests that security for SaaS applications should be a core part of any organization’s overall security strategy. 

Read the full paper to learn more about SaaS security challenges and recommendations.