Managing a small business requires handling a multitude of tasks, from driving growth to managing day-to-day operations. In today's digital landscape, many small businesses rely on SaaS (Software as a Service) applications to improve efficiency, streamline workflows, and reduce operational costs. However, with the convenience of SaaS also comes the challenge of maintaining a secure environment. It’s all too easy to overlook security when team members sign up for new tools, often without a formal process, leading to the risk of unmanaged applications exposing your business to vulnerabilities.
To help you navigate SaaS security without being overwhelmed, here are five practical steps you can implement to safeguard your business.
Step 1: Establish a Comprehensive Security Inventory
Before securing your systems, it’s critical to understand what you are protecting. Small businesses often face challenges with "Shadow IT"—situations where employees independently sign up for SaaS applications without IT’s knowledge. This can lead to untracked tools that may present security risks.
To mitigate this, begin by identifying all SaaS applications your employees are using. Conduct internal surveys or leverage automated tools to create a complete inventory of the applications in use. This security inventory will serve as your baseline, enabling you to assess which applications need closer scrutiny or pose potential risks. Once you have full visibility, you can focus on securing these applications.
Step 2: Define Clear Security Responsibilities
SaaS security is a shared responsibility between your business, your employees, and the SaaS providers themselves. However, roles and responsibilities are often unclear. To avoid security gaps, ensure that every party understands their role.
For example, your IT team should be responsible for setting up essential security measures such as Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Single Sign-On (SSO). Employees, on the other hand, should be required to create and maintain strong, unique passwords. Lastly, vendors are responsible for securing your data on their platform and ensuring compliance with industry regulations. Clarifying these roles across your team and with vendors will help prevent overlooked vulnerabilities.
Step 3: Align SaaS Usage with Company Policies
Your business likely has security policies that need to be followed, and it’s important that every SaaS application aligns with these standards. This ensures compliance with industry regulations, such as SOC 2, HIPAA, or GDPR, depending on your business requirements.
Ensure that each SaaS tool your business uses offers secure authentication methods like MFA or SSO. By aligning SaaS applications with your organization’s policies and compliance needs, you minimize security risks and avoid potential legal or regulatory violations.
Step 4: Regularly Monitor and Assess SaaS Risks
SaaS security isn’t a one-time task. As your business grows, so will the number of applications you use. It’s crucial to continuously monitor and reassess these tools to ensure they meet your security requirements over time.
Regularly review your SaaS stack, track potential vulnerabilities, and stay informed of new risks by using threat intelligence and resources like Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) notifications. Conducting ongoing security assessments helps ensure that you stay proactive in identifying and mitigating risks.
Step 5: Leverage SaaS Posture Management Tools
As your business scales, consider investing in posture management tools. These tools provide in-depth visibility into the security settings, permissions, and configurations within SaaS applications, ensuring they remain aligned with your security requirements.
Posture management features are often found in enterprise-level tools, but some are available for small businesses as well. These solutions can help you identify misconfigurations or unauthorized changes within your SaaS environment, adding another layer of protection.
Top SaaS Security Solutions for Small Businesses
Here’s a look at five leading SaaS security tools, each with unique strengths and limitations. Selecting the right solution will depend on your specific needs.
Pros: Waldo Security is designed to help small businesses manage their SaaS usage efficiently. It offers robust tools for identifying all applications being used, mapping them to compliance and authentication policies, and highlighting any security gaps.
Cons: While Waldo excels in app discovery and policy alignment, it lacks comprehensive posture management capabilities, meaning it won’t provide insights into detailed app configurations.
2. Zscaler
Pros: Zscaler is known for its strong network-level security features. It blocks unauthorized SaaS applications and monitors network traffic to ensure compliance with security policies.
Cons: While Zscaler can block non-compliant apps, it lacks the ability to monitor SaaS-specific activities within your organization, such as tracking user signups or device access.
3. Varonis
Pros: Varonis shines in managing sensitive data and SaaS posture management for applications like Office 365. It helps ensure that confidential information is handled securely.
Cons: Varonis is limited to specific SaaS applications, so if your business uses a wide range of tools, it may not provide comprehensive coverage.
4. Obsidian Security
Pros: Obsidian offers robust security features for enterprise-level applications such as Salesforce and Office 365. Its analytics tools help detect vulnerabilities and security risks.
Cons: Obsidian's discovery capabilities are limited to apps connected to your identity provider, leaving Shadow IT undetected.
5. Netskope
Pros: Netskope excels at SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM), offering strong protection for cloud-based applications like Google Workspace and Zoom. It ensures that SaaS configurations are secure.
Cons: Netskope’s discovery capabilities are limited, and it may not provide a full view of all SaaS tools in use within your organization.
Conclusion
SaaS security may seem daunting, but with the right approach, it becomes manageable. By following these five steps—mapping your SaaS usage, clarifying responsibilities, aligning with policies, monitoring risks, and leveraging posture management tools—you can protect your business without being overwhelmed by technical complexities.
Selecting the right tools for your business is crucial. Whether you need the compliance mapping capabilities of Waldo Security or the posture management strength of Netskope, it’s important to choose solutions that align with your specific needs. SaaS security isn’t one-size-fits-all, but with the right strategy and tools, even small businesses can achieve a high level of protection in today’s digital world.
Comments