The Problem With 'Trust but Verify' Is That We Don't Verify
Nov 17, 2025
In cybersecurity, the old adage "trust but verify" emphasizes that granting trust should always be accompanied by oversight. Yet, with software-as-a-service (SaaS), organizations often stop at the "trust" part and never get around to the "verify." SaaS environments in 2025 run on implicit trust. Once a user or app is authenticated and given access, it's largely trusted indefinitely. Tokens issued to third-party apps rarely expire, integrations often get more permissions than they truly need, and automations execute with minimal human oversight. We talk about Zero Trust principles, but in practice, many SaaS platforms grant one-time approval and then assume all is well thereafter. The result is a growing security gap, where credentials and connections are implicitly trusted far beyond what's safe, creating fertile ground for breaches and abuse. Implicit Trust in the SaaS Ecosystem Every SaaS integration or API token represents an implicit trust relationship between your organizatio...
