Unmanaged SaaS accounts—those created outside IT’s oversight—pose a growing risk to organizations. While employees often adopt SaaS tools to boost productivity, these accounts can quickly create security gaps, compliance issues, and operational challenges.
Securing unmanaged SaaS accounts is critical to maintaining visibility, control, and governance over your organization’s SaaS landscape. So how can you bring these accounts under control while minimizing risks?
Why Securing Unmanaged SaaS Accounts Is Critical
When SaaS accounts are unmanaged, they expose your organization to multiple risks:
Data Exfiltration: Sensitive data can be stored, shared, or leaked without IT approval or tracking.
Compliance Failures: Unmanaged accounts may violate regulatory standards like GDPR, HIPAA, or SOC 2.
Access Risks: Unmonitored accounts often lack proper user permissions and may remain active even after employees leave.
Increased Attack Surface: SaaS platforms with weak authentication can become entry points for cyberattacks.
Visibility Issues: IT teams lose insight into where data resides and how it is shared.
Unmanaged accounts create blind spots that compromise your organization’s security posture and compliance readiness.
Steps to Secure Unmanaged SaaS Accounts
1. Discover Unmanaged SaaS Accounts The first step to securing SaaS accounts is identifying them. You can’t secure what you can’t see. Use a combination of network monitoring, Identity and Access Management (IAM) tools, and automated discovery platforms to identify all SaaS accounts in use.
Key actions:
Monitor network traffic for SaaS-related connections.
Audit SSO (Single Sign-On) tools to uncover accounts outside approved ecosystems.
Use automated SaaS discovery tools like Waldo Security to detect unmanaged accounts.
2. Assess Risk Levels for Discovered Accounts Once identified, categorize unmanaged SaaS accounts based on their risk levels. Evaluate them for:
Security risks: Does the SaaS platform support strong authentication and encryption?
Compliance: Does the tool meet standards like GDPR, HIPAA, or SOC 2?
Data sensitivity: What type of data is stored or processed in the account?
Pro tip: Use automated tools to assess risk and flag high-priority accounts for immediate review.
3. Enforce Access and Authentication Controls To secure unmanaged accounts, ensure proper access controls and authentication mechanisms are enforced:
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for all SaaS accounts.
Integrate SaaS accounts with your organization’s SSO to centralize identity management.
Apply least privilege access to limit user permissions based on roles.
What to look for:
SaaS platforms that allow SSO integration
Accounts with excessive permissions or weak passwords
4. Establish Governance Policies for SaaS Usage Prevent future unmanaged accounts by establishing clear governance policies:
Define processes for onboarding and approving SaaS tools.
Educate employees on the risks of unauthorized SaaS usage.
Use automated alerts to notify IT when new SaaS accounts are detected.
Pro tip: Provide employees with a centralized catalog of approved SaaS tools to reduce shadow IT.
5. Automate SaaS Account Management with Waldo Security Manual methods for securing unmanaged SaaS accounts are inefficient and error-prone. Tools like Waldo Security simplify the process by automating SaaS discovery, risk assessment, and account management.
With Waldo Security, you can:
Discover unmanaged SaaS accounts across your environment.
Assess risks based on compliance, security gaps, and user activity.
Integrate with SSO and IAM systems to bring accounts under centralized management.
Flag unauthorized accounts for offboarding or remediation.
By automating SaaS account management, you reduce security risks while maintaining visibility and control.
Final Thoughts: Taking Control of SaaS Security
Unmanaged SaaS accounts are an inevitable challenge in modern organizations, but they don’t have to be a permanent problem. By combining proactive discovery, risk assessment, and governance with tools like Waldo Security, you can secure your SaaS landscape and eliminate security blind spots.
At Waldo Security, we help organizations bring order to SaaS chaos. From identifying unmanaged accounts to ensuring compliance, we provide the tools you need to keep your SaaS ecosystem secure and efficient.
Ready to take control of your SaaS accounts? Let Waldo Security help you secure what matters most.
Comments