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The Midnight Blizzard and Cloudflare-Atlassian cybersecurity incidents raised alarms about the vulnerabilities inherent in major SaaS platforms. These incidents illustrate the stakes involved in SaaS breaches — safeguarding the integrity of SaaS apps and their sensitive data is critical but is not easy. Common threat vectors such as sophisticated spear-phishing, misconfigurations and vulnerabilities in third-party app integrations demonstrate the complex security challenges facing IT systems. In the case of Midnight Blizzard, password spraying against a test environment was the initial attack vector. For Cloudflare-Atlassian, threat actors initiated the attack via compromised  OAuth tokens  from a prior breach at Okta, a SaaS identity security provider.  What Exactly Happened? Microsoft Midnight Blizzard Breach Microsoft was targeted by the Russian "Midnight Blizzard" hackers (also known as Nobelium, APT29, or Cozy Bear) who are linked to the SVR, the Kremlin's forei

Ambitious Employees Tout New AI Tools, Ignore Serious SaaS Security Risks Like the  SaaS shadow IT  of the past, AI is placing CISOs and cybersecurity teams in a tough but familiar spot.  Employees are covertly using AI  with little regard for established IT and cybersecurity review procedures. Considering  ChatGPT's meteoric rise to 100 million users within 60 days of launch , especially with little sales and marketing fanfare, employee-driven demand for AI tools will only escalate.  As new studies show  some workers boost productivity by 40% using generative AI , the pressure for CISOs and their teams to fast-track AI adoption — and turn a blind eye to unsanctioned AI tool usage — is intensifying.  But succumbing to these pressures can introduce serious SaaS data leakage and breach risks, particularly as employees flock to AI tools developed by small businesses, solopreneurs, and indie developers. AI Security Guide Download AppOmni's CISO Guide to AI Security - Part 2 AI e

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

A  new State of SaaS Security Posture Management Report  from SaaS cybersecurity provider  AppOmni  indicates that Cybersecurity, IT, and business leaders alike recognize SaaS cybersecurity as an increasingly important part of the cyber threat landscape. And at first glance, respondents appear generally optimistic about their SaaS cybersecurity. Over 600 IT, cybersecurity, and business leaders at companies between 500-2,500+ employees were surveyed and responded with confidence in their SaaS cybersecurity preparedness and capabilities. For example: When asked to rate the SaaS cybersecurity maturity level of their organizations, 71% noted that their organizations' SaaS cybersecurity maturity has achieved either a mid-high level (43%) or the highest level (28%). For the security levels of the SaaS applications authorized for use in their organization, sentiment was similarly high. Seventy-three percent rated SaaS application security as mid-high (41%) or the highest maturity level (

Security and IT teams are routinely forced to adopt software before fully understanding the security risks. And AI tools are no exception. Employees and business leaders alike are flocking to generative AI software and similar programs, often unaware of the major SaaS security vulnerabilities they're introducing into the enterprise. A February 2023  generative AI survey of 1,000 executives  revealed that 49% of respondents use ChatGPT now, and 30% plan to tap into the ubiquitous generative AI tool soon. Ninety-nine percent of those using ChatGPT claimed some form of cost-savings, and 25% attested to reducing expenses by $75,000 or more. As the researchers conducted this survey a mere three months after ChatGPT's general availability, today's ChatGPT and AI tool usage is undoubtedly higher.  Security and risk teams are already overwhelmed protecting their SaaS estate (which has now become the operating system of business) from common vulnerabilities such as misconfigurati

Recent data breaches across CircleCI, LastPass, and Okta underscore a common theme: The enterprise SaaS stacks connected to these industry-leading apps can be at serious risk for compromise. CircleCI, for example, plays an integral, SaaS-to-SaaS role for SaaS app development. Similarly, tens of thousands of organizations rely on Okta and LastPass security roles for SaaS identity and access management. Enterprise and niche SaaS apps alike have effectively introduced multitudes of unmonitored endpoints into organizations of all sizes.  While  spending for SaaS security  is trending up, it lags behind categories such as cloud infrastructure protection and network security. According to Statista, the average organization employs 100+ SaaS apps, many of which are unsanctioned by IT, creating a glaring gap in SaaS security.  Why Users Flock to SaaS Apps — And Often Bypass IT in the Process As productivity tools for tasks such as marketing automation, document signature, and sales foreca