Tech companies are often thought of as having a security advantage over other older, mature industries. Most businesses will be freed from the burden of 40 years of legacy systems and software. They have recruited the world’s youngest and brightest digital natives to their ranks, all of whom have lifelong considerations of cybersecurity issues.
Perhaps you’re overlooking SaaS security configuration because you’re tech savvy. During the Christmas holidays last year, Slack had some private code stolen from his GitHub repository. Slack said the stolen code did not affect production and did not steal customer data.
Still, the breach should serve as a warning to other tech companies. The stolen token allowed the attacker to access her GitHub instance and download the code. If this kind of attack can happen in his Slack on her GitHub, it can happen in any tech company. Technology companies need to take SaaS security seriously to prevent resource leaks and theft.
App Breach: A Repeating Story
Slack’s bad luck with GitHub isn’t the first time a GitHub breach has occurred. Back in April, his OAuth tokens were stolen from OAuth applications managed by Heraku and Travis CI, leading to attackers downloading data from dozens of private code repositories.
MailChimp, a SaaS app used to manage email campaigns, experienced three breaches in the 12 months of 2022-2023. Customer data was stolen by threat actors and used in attacks against cryptocurrency companies.
SevenRooms had over 400 GB of sensitive data stolen from its CRM platform, PayPal notified customers in January that unauthorized third parties had accessed their accounts using stolen login credentials, and Atlassian in February. breach exposed employee and corporate data.
Clearly, technology companies are not immune to data breaches. Protecting proprietary code, customer data, and employee records stored within SaaS applications should be a top priority.
Reliance on SaaS applications
A strong SaaS posture is important for any company, but it’s especially important for organizations that store their own code in SaaS applications. The code is particularly attractive to attackers who only want to monetize their efforts and demand a ransom from the code’s authors.
Technology companies also tend to combine numerous SaaS applications, from collaboration platforms to sales and marketing tools, legal and finance, data warehouses, cybersecurity solutions, and more, to secure the entire stack. is becoming even more difficult.
Technical employees rely heavily on SaaS apps to conduct their day-to-day work. As such, her identity and access must be tightly controlled by the security team. Additionally, these users tend to log into her SaaS app via another device to maintain efficiency, which could pose a risk to the organization depending on the hygiene level of the device. Additionally, technical employees tend to connect to the core stack without thinking deeply about third-party applications, giving these applications a high risk envelope.
Learn how Adaptive Shield can help protect your entire SaaS stack.
Controlling SaaS access after layoffs
The tech industry is known for periods of hypergrowth followed by periods of contraction. The past few months have seen Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Shopify and others announce job cuts.
Deprovisioning employees from SaaS applications is a key element of data security. Much of an employee’s offboarding is automated, but her SaaS application, which isn’t connected to the company’s directory, doesn’t automatically revoke access. Even connected applications may have admin accounts outside of her SSO at the company. A user’s admin access through the app’s login screen is often accessible even if the primary SSO account is disconnected.
Organic hyper-growth and M&A
At the same time, the industry is ripe for merger and acquisition announcements. As a result of M&A, the acquiring company must create a SaaS security baseline and monitor all his SaaS stacks of merged or acquired companies while ensuring business continuity. Whether exponential growth is organic or through M&A, organizations need to be able to get right-sized access for their users at scale and quickly.
Identity threat detection and response
Most data breaches that affect technology companies are caused by stolen credentials or tokens. Threat actors use valid user credentials to enter systems through the front door.
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) detects suspicious events that would otherwise go unnoticed. A SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) solution with a threat detection engine that alerts you when there are indicators of compromise (IOCs). These IOCs are based on cross-referencing activity such as user geolocation, time, frequency, repeated login attempts, and excessive activity.
Protecting high-tech SaaS
Maintaining an advanced SaaS security posture is difficult for tech companies. Tech companies may mistakenly believe they are well equipped and trained to prevent SaaS attacks. While SaaS Security Posture Management is essential to prevent his SaaS breaches, his SSPM with ITDR capabilities goes a long way in ensuring the safety of his SaaS data.
Learn how Adaptive Shield can help protect your entire SaaS stack.
