What is SaaS Security? Challenges & Best Practices

Businesses increasingly rely on Software as a Service (SaaS) for increased efficiency, collaborativeness, and scalability. Numbers are the best proof of this trend: the SaaS industry is valued at ~$273 billion in 2024 and is expected to triple to an impressive $720.4 billion by 2028. While SaaS offers multiple opportunities, they also pose data security risks. That is why SaaS users must create a strong defense strategy to ensure SaaS security.

Let’s see what SaaS security is, why it is important, and how businesses can ensure the security of their SaaS applications.

What is SaaS Security?

SaaS security refers to the strategies, controls, and best practices designed to protect SaaS applications and the sensitive data they store. It focuses on mitigating risks such as unauthorized access, data breaches, and misconfigurations while ensuring compliance with data protection regulations. 

SaaS security is a shared responsibility between the provider and the client. While providers handle infrastructure and platform security, customers are responsible for securing user access, data, and configurations and ensuring compliance. Unfortunately, there is a significant gap in organizations’ understanding of their share of responsibility in this model. A 2024 survey revealed that 60% of businesses (!) mistakenly believe their SaaS providers entirely handle data protection. This misunderstanding often leads to vulnerabilities that may lead to serious SaaS security risks. 

Why is SaaS Security Important?

SaaS security is critical for protecting sensitive data, ensuring compliance, and maintaining trust in cloud environments. As SaaS adoption continues to grow, so do cyber threats. Breaches and misconfigurations across applications such as Okta, Salesforce, and Google Workspace indicate the challenges that organizations face, from core business to security SaaS applications. 

The Okta breach demonstrated the far-reaching consequences of SaaS-based attacks, affecting 100% of its customer base. This incident underscores how a single breach in a SaaS provider can cascade, impacting thousands of organizations, exposing widespread vulnerabilities, and posing multiple non-compliance issues. 

SaaS Security Challenges

Among the top challenges in securing SaaS are the lack of control and visibility, poor access management, misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, and insider threats. However, new challenges are constantly evolving:

Decentralized Ownership

In the context of SaaS, decentralized ownership means the distribution of processing power, storage, and application control among multiple stakeholders. While this approach increases flexibility and collaboration, it also introduces data security challenges. SaaS applications have decentralized IT procurement, with an increasing number of administrators managing these apps outside traditional IT and security teams. The lack of centralized control increases the risk of human error and misconfigurations, posing significant SaaS security risks. 

Complex Integrations

SaaS integration is the connection of SaaS applications with other applications and systems so they can request and share data seamlessly. As businesses adopt multiple SaaS solutions, the complexity of integrating these tools also grows. Many organizations have more than 50% of integrations inactive, leaving an open door for attackers to access critical SaaS applications. Additionally, organizations tend to have an average of 21 integrations that provide organization-wide access, with 33% of third-party SaaS integrations granting access to sensitive data. These complex integrations are difficult to manage, which makes SaaS an even more attractive target for attackers.

Data Privacy Concerns

SaaS security raises pressing data privacy concerns, including the risk of unauthorized access, unclear data ownership, and compliance challenges. SaaS data leaks like Cambridge Analytica become more common, making customers concerned with their data privacy. SaaS-based data faces threats from insider misuse, shadow IT, and third-party vulnerabilities. To address these concerns, organizations must implement robust access controls, encryption, and thorough vendor evaluations to safeguard their SaaS data.

Essential Security Risks in SaaS

Modern SaaS security risks primarily revolve around data security, access control, and compliance challenges, often compounded by evolving cyber threats. Key risks include: 

• Shadow SaaS;
• Insecure SaaS configurations;
• Lack of visibility into third-party risks;
• Insider threats;
• Potential compliance violations, e.g., consumer privacy;
• Deficient data security;
• Poor access control management (IAM);
• Misunderstanding of who manages what in SaaS; 

Organizations should prioritize automated security tools like SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) to mitigate these risks, continuously monitor environments, and ensure compliance with standards like GDPR and CCPA​.

SaaS Security Best Practices

Modern SaaS security best practices help ensure SaaS security is on a continuous basis:

Use Strong Data Encryption Mechanisms

Data stored in SaaS must be encrypted both in transit and at rest. Encryption at rest protects sensitive data from a system compromise or data exfiltration while stored. NIST recommends using AES and RSA encryption algorithms to encrypt data at rest. Encryption in transit protects sensitive data if communications are intercepted during data movement. The most effective protocols that encrypt SaaS data in transit are SSL and TLS. 

SaaS data encryption best practices also include proper encryption. Thus, a centralized key management system should be used, and access controls for key generation, storage, and use should be established. Finally, update your encryption protocols regularly to ensure proper protection as new vulnerabilities emerge.

Robust Access Controls

User identity and access controls are basic requirements for keeping the SaaS environment secure and compliant. Yet, using stolen credentials (77%) and brute force attacks (21%) are the most common ways hackers gain access to data. Access control best practices for SaaS include but are not limited to solid password hygiene, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and RBAC.

A strong password should be a unique combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. Additionally, it should be at least 12 characters long to withstand brute-force attacks.

MFA is a necessary measure and one of the widely implemented CIS controls to protect SaaS data. MFA adds an extra layer of protection on top of the default user name and password. SaaS giants are used to 356 provide MFA options—e.g., AWS MFA or Google MFA—to secure cloud-based data. 

RBAC manages access by grouping permissions into roles and responsibilities, ensuring users have access only to the data and features essential for their roles. For example, when using Google Workspace RBAC, users can assign roles based on their job responsibilities, the organization’s tenancies, or temporary roles necessary to investigate an issue.

Although many SaaS providers provide access control capabilities, it is the organization’s responsibility to configure access properly to limit access to data to a limited number of individuals.

Compliance with Governance Standards

SaaS must be part of any compliance process involving any data transaction. Regulations like HIPAA, PCI-DSS, CCPA, and GDPR require organizations to implement robust security measures, including encryption, access controls, and regular security audits that enhance confidence in SaaS security. Organizations should know where SaaS apps store data that’s relevant to regulations and industry compliance frameworks. SaaS system owners likewise need to understand where their apps intersect with compliance. 

Security Solutions for SaaS

CSA survey indicates a widespread utilization of tools like SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) and Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) for securing the SaaS stack. Let’s learn about these tools in more detail and see how they strengthen your SaaS security posture. 

SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM)

SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) refers to automated security tools that identify and address potential vulnerabilities in SaaS applications. These tools help detect misconfigurations, dormant user accounts, over-permissioned users, compliance gaps, and other issues. 

Organizations that utilize SSPM solutions consistently report fewer challenges compared to non-users across various critical security areas. For instance, a CSA survey found that 56% of SSPM users find it easy to manage misconfigurations, compared to only 24% of non-users. Similarly, 52% of SSPM users effectively monitor third-party applications, a capability reported by just 24% of non-users. The same works with SaaS government, risk management, and compliance. Governance of identity security also stands out, with 56% of SSPM users managing it efficiently, while only 30% of non-users achieve the same.

These findings underscore the efficiency and value of SSPM solutions in managing complex SaaS environments, helping organizations enhance security, maintain compliance, and minimize risks with greater confidence and control.

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs)

A Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) is a security tool that bridges users and cloud services, ensuring secure data access and usage in SaaS environments. It protects SaaS data by enforcing access controls, detecting and mitigating risks like misconfigurations, unauthorized sharing, and shadow IT, and ensuring compliance through data loss prevention (DLP) and activity monitoring. 

Although CASB is widely utilized by 49% of enterprises, it still has several significant limitations. Unlike SSPM, CASB is proactive in controlling access and detecting real-time threats but does not dive deeply into configuration-level risks. In addition, CASBs can’t cover the different configurations and security settings in each SaaS application, lack flexibility in addressing evolving SaaS characteristics and threats, and have a significant integration complexity. 

Thus, to enhance SaaS security, organizations are recommended to complement CASB with SSPM to add a basic security hygiene layer, such as correcting misconfigurations and ensuring compliance.

How to Choose the Right SaaS Security Platform

The decision on what SaaS security platform to choose depends on your organization’s specific needs, existing security posture, and future growth plans. Some of the main ideas to consider when choosing the right SaaS security platform include:

• Functionality: define the functionality that meets the needs of your business. This may include managing misconfigurations, enforcing access controls, or aligning with compliance requirements, etc.
• Integration: outline the tools, such as CASB or SIEM, that your business uses. Search for an SSPM that integrates with as many of them as possible.
• Scalability: consider scalability to handle future SaaS adoption, ease of deployment, and user-friendly dashboards.
• Automation: prioritize solutions offering automation and actionable insights to reduce administrative burdens while maintaining robust security. 
• Vendor support: assess the vendor’s reputation, customer support, and ability to provide timely assistance and updates.
• Pricing and Customer Reviews: review pricing models and customer reviews to ensure a strong fit for your organization.

You can choose an SSPM platform that effectively strengthens your SaaS security posture by carefully evaluating these aspects.

How SPIN.AI can Help

Looking for a reliable SaaS security platform? See how SpinAI can help!

SpinOne is an all-in-one platform designed to simplify the complexity of SaaS security. It combines four solutions that secure sensitive SaaS data from security breaches and insider threats: 

• Spin Security Posture Management (SpinSPM): provides full visibility and fast incident response on SaaS misconfigurations, unsanctioned apps, and malicious browser extensions;
• Spin Ransomware Detection and Response (SpinRDR): offers immediate ransomware detection and response capabilities, reducing downtime to less than 2 hours instead of weeks or months.
• Spin Backup and Disaster Recovery (SpinBackup): guarantees cyber resiliency with automated, 3x daily backup for your SaaS data.
• Spin Data Leak Prevention & Data Loss Protection (SpinDLP): ensures configurable access management and advanced reporting for enhanced data control.

Utilize the SpinOne platform as a whole for comprehensive SaaS security or take advantage of the solutions it offers separately for more specific and targeted needs. 

Ready to take your SaaS security to the next level? Schedule a free demo today to learn how SpinOne can help protect your organization.