As SaaS has grown, attack surfaces have widened, raising the risk of data breaches. In companies using SaaS, we’ve seen a 20-fold increase in the number of PII files they create. Cyber-criminals are well aware of this and are increasingly adept at finding back doors – whether it’s a flaw in the infrastructure or an unintentional misconfiguration.

 

SaaS applications are designed and built to facilitate collaboration and data sharing, essential for employee and business productivity; this represents a nearly 7x increase in SaaS app usage since 2017 and a 14x increase since 2015. SaaS security automation can assist in resolving current security problems.

 

Better automation and visibility: SaaS security

SaaS applications enable collaboration and data sharing, which is crucial for improving employee and business productivity. Nonetheless, these apps transmit sensitive information, and employees are prone to making mistakes, such as leaving files open to the public without realizing it. The majority of employees are not security experts, so that scammers can take advantage of this. With the visibility challenge overcome and automation implemented, “self-healing security” will improve over time rather than degradation.

 

Is self-healing SaaS security possible?

This is how self-healing security works in practices:

 

It has already been reported that some industry ecosystems have integrated platforms to address the following cycle of Visualize→ Detect→ Prioritize fixes → Automated remediation→ Validation of “healing.”

 

In order to make it fast and accurate, several platforms must work together with significant automation. The platforms allow for visibility across SaaS applications, file and user management, and automated testing by “red teams” to identify and prioritize security vulnerabilities. After the security vulnerabilities are identified, the remediation process is managed, and the fixes are implemented.

 

Depending on the issue, a lot of the responses can be automated. Consider the case of a user who publicly shares their social security number. The security team should detect the problem automatically, unshared the file, and notify you.

SaaS self-healing security should not be dependent on many vendors and platforms, nor should it entail dozens of point-level controls. With careful product selection and alignment of SaaS management and security platforms, it is possible to reverse the constant security breakdown. SaaS self-healing security should free security teams from the most time-consuming and error-prone aspects of SaaS oversight, allowing them to focus on being strategic and proactive.