Privacy Week Prep: 20-Minute SaaS Exposure Audit

Martin Snyder
13 minutes ago
3 min read

Privacy Week is the perfect moment to check what’s really connected to your environment. This 20-minute SaaS exposure audit helps security and compliance teams verify where sensitive data actually flows.

Why Privacy Week Matters for SaaS

Each year, Privacy Week reminds organizations to re-evaluate how they handle personal and regulated data. But most privacy reviews still focus on policies — not on the actual tools moving data behind the scenes.

According to Waldo Security’s 2025 SaaS & Cloud Discovery Report:

97 % of SaaS apps are unknown to IT
93 % lack compliance certifications
< 1 % of SaaS accounts enforce MFA

If you’re preparing statements for regulators or internal auditors this Privacy Week,

visibility is your most valuable evidence.

The 20-Minute SaaS Exposure Audit

This quick audit helps privacy, security, and GRC teams locate data exposure points across SaaS and cloud services — using data you already have.

Goal: Identify which SaaS tools store, sync, or process personal or regulated information.

Step 1 (5 Minutes) — Export OAuth and App Connections

Start with your identity provider or workspace (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Okta, Entra ID).Export all third-party app connections and OAuth grants.

Review for:

Tools with “Drive,” “Mail,” or “Calendar” access
AI assistants and automation apps
Unrecognized or personal integrations

These connections represent silent data transfers that often bypass internal policy. CISA’s Secure Cloud Business Applications (SCuBA) guidance calls out unmanaged OAuth permissions as a top source of privacy exposure.

Step 2 (5 Minutes) — Cross-Check With Your Vendor List

Compare the exported list against your approved vendor inventory. Mark each as:

✅ Approved — exists in your vendor management system
⚠️ Unregistered — used but not formally reviewed
❌ Unknown — no record of usage or ownership

Focus first on ❌ Unknown tools.

Under the NIST Privacy Framework, unknown processors or sub-processors break accountability for data handling.

Step 3 (5 Minutes) — Check Compliance and Data Location

For each tool that processes customer, employee, or regulated data, verify:

SOC 2 Type II or ISO 27001 certifications ?
Clear privacy policy and data transfer statements ?
Regional storage location (especially for EU or HIPAA data) ?

If any app fails these checks, flag it for review by your Data Protection Officer (DPO) or privacy counsel.

Frameworks like ISO 27001 require traceability of every data processor — not just major vendors.

Step 4 (3 Minutes) — Verify Identity Controls

Ask three questions for each SaaS app:

Does it enforce SSO and MFA?
Are accounts linked to corporate identity providers?
Are departed users automatically offboarded?

If the answer is “no” to any of these, mark the app as Identity Risk = High.

The CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model classifies these as core identity assurance requirements for cloud services.

Step 5 (2 Minutes) — Document & Share Findings

Create a simple table:

App Name	Owner	Data Type	Compliance Cert	SSO/MFA	Risk
Example CRM	Marketing	Customer PII	SOC 2	Yes	Low
AI Assistant	Sales	Inbox Data	None	No	High

Share the results with IT security and your privacy lead. In 20 minutes, you’ve produced an evidence-based snapshot of SaaS exposure for Privacy Week — and a starting point for continuous governance.

How Discovery Turns Privacy into Proof

This exercise is a micro version of continuous discovery — the practice of monitoring SaaS and cloud usage in real time to maintain visibility. It not only supports privacy requirements but also fulfills controls across ISO 27001, SOC 2, and GDPR.

Waldo Security’s SaaS & Cloud Discovery Engine automates what this manual audit starts:

Enumerating every connected SaaS and Shadow CSP account
Identifying OAuth tokens and high-risk permissions
Mapping apps to compliance frameworks
Providing a real-time privacy inventory for auditors

Visibility transforms privacy from a checkbox to an ongoing assurance process.

Conclusion: From Privacy Awareness to Action

Privacy Week isn’t just about policies — it’s about visibility. You can’t protect data you can’t see, and you can’t prove compliance with systems you don’t know exist.

The 20-Minute SaaS Exposure Audit is a small step that reveals a big truth: the path to privacy starts with discovery.

👉 See how other organizations are tackling SaaS and Cloud Discovery challenges in the 2025 Waldo Security Report.

About Waldo Security

Waldo Security helps organizations discover, classify, and secure every SaaS and cloud service in use — known or unknown. By illuminating Shadow IT, unmanaged identities, and OAuth risk, Waldo enables CISOs and security leaders to strengthen privacy, compliance, and governance across their entire SaaS footprint.