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It may come as a surprise to learn that 34% of security practitioners are in the dark about how many SaaS applications are deployed in their organizations. And it's no wonder—the recent AppOmni 2024 State of SaaS Security Report reveals that only 15% of organizations centralize SaaS security within their cybersecurity teams. These statistics not only highlight a critical security blind spot, they also point to the fact that organizational culture is often overlooked as a driving factor behind these risks. As SaaS environments become more decentralized, the lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities is leaving companies exposed.  Most security teams focus solely on technical matters, often overlooking how their company's culture—its everyday practices, attitudes, and default policy enforcement processes—shapes their organization's security posture. Overconfidence, unclear responsibilities, and a lack of continuous monitoring can lead to SaaS security breaches. Let's exami...

The modern kill chain is eluding enterprises because they aren't protecting the infrastructure of modern business: SaaS .  SaaS continues to dominate software adoption , and it accounts for the greatest share of public cloud spending. But enterprises and SMBs alike haven't revised their security programs or adopted security tooling built for SaaS.  Security teams keep jamming on-prem pegs into SaaS security holes  The mature security controls CISOs and their teams depended on in the age of on-prem dominance have vanished. Firewalls now protect a small perimeter, visibility is limited, and even if SaaS vendors offer logs, security teams need homegrown middleware to digest them and push into their SIEM.  SaaS vendors do have well-defined security scopes for their products, but their customers must manage SaaS compliance and data governance, identity and access management (IAM), and application controls — the areas where most incidents occur. While this SaaS shared...

Organizations now use an average of 112 SaaS applications —a number that keeps growing. In a 2024 study, 49% of 644 respondents who frequently used Microsoft 365 believed that they had less than 10 apps connected to the platform, despite the fact that aggregated data indicated over 1,000+ Microsoft 365 SaaS-to-SaaS connections on average per deployment. And that's just one major SaaS provider. Imagine other unforeseen critical security risks: Each SaaS app has unique security configurations —making misconfigurations a top risk. Business-critical apps (CRM, finance, and collaboration tools) store vast amounts of sensitive data, making them prime targets for attackers. Shadow IT and third-party integrations introduce hidden vulnerabilities that often go unnoticed. Large and small third-party AI service providers (e.g. audio/video transcription service) may not comply with legal and regulatory requirements, or properly test and review code. Major SaaS providers also have thous...

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...

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 highe...

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 misconfigura...