The telecommunications industry has always been an attractive target for cybercriminals. The combination of interconnected networks, customer data, and sensitive information allows cybercriminals to do the most damage with the least amount of effort.
Telecom company data breaches tend to have seismic and far-reaching consequences. In addition to hard-to-measure reputational damage, telecom companies are often fined by governments for cybersecurity and privacy failures.
Few industries in the world collect as much sensitive data as telecommunications companies. In recent years, telcos have accelerated their digital transformation, retired legacy systems, and reduced costs. These changes, coupled with the need for stronger collaboration with third-party vendors, have led to his SaaS applications to handle CRM.
Today, telecommunications companies use SaaS apps for billing, human resources, call management, field operations management, call center effectiveness tracking, and hundreds of other applications. These apps can help facilitate communication and improve processes, but the sheer size of these companies requires extra security measures, especially in the areas of collaboration and identity management.
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Purpose and pitfalls of using telecom SaaS apps
Demographics, behavior, purchase history, family data, mobile preferences, and browsing history are just a few of the data points collected by global telecoms.
This data is analyzed, packaged and shared with mobile advertisers. Advertisers have access to the telecom company’s SaaS app, where they can mine data to develop powerful marketing and advertising campaigns.
However, partnerships with carriers and their vendors require that app settings be configured in a way that allows external access while preventing unwanted visitors from viewing, copying, and downloading data.
Fluctuations in configuration can expose personal data to a much larger number of users and expose telecommunications companies to compromise.
Partnerships with carriers extend to other carriers. Roaming charges have to be shared among GSM providers for billing purposes, while MVNOs build their entire business model on their telecom networks. This data is captured and stored within the SaaS application and can be vulnerable when shared between operators.
Access control in Telecom SaaS
Telecommunications companies are one of the world’s largest employers. With turnover hovering around 18%, a telecommunications company with 200,000 employees is expected to leave 36,000 employees each year, or about 140 employees per working day. .
Much of the employee deprovisioning process is automated. The human resources department removes the employee from the company directory. This will trigger the process of shutting down email, network access, SSO access, and other identity-based access points.
Some SaaS applications are connected to your company’s directory, but many are not. Additional work is required to deprovision. For example, a SaaS application administrator may have multiple logins to SaaS. One she logs in via SSO and another with username and password so she can access if her SSO goes down. SSO access may be automatically revoked, but secondary access remains active in many SaaS applications.
Former employees, especially those who have been terminated, should immediately revoke access to prevent potential data breaches, breaches, and other cyberattacks.
Telecom SaaS threat detection
A strong SaaS structure is a must for any company. However, communications service providers are attractive targets for attackers and need to take their threat detection capabilities to the next level.
SaaS threat detection involves looking at data from across the SaaS stack to identify indicators of compromise (IOCs). These indicators of malware, data breaches, and other suspicious events within the SaaS ecosystem can direct security teams to compromised accounts to mitigate threats.
Securing Telecom SaaS
SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) is your first line of defense for SaaS. Carriers can use this tool to manage sensitive configurations. 24/7 monitoring of all settings alerts security teams in the event of drift, and remediation guidelines show app owners how to protect their data.
SSPM is also used for user monitoring. Search for user roles across the SaaS stack to find ex-employees who need deprovisioning and guide users on the best way to remove access. Meanwhile, SSPM’s threat detection capabilities can alert security teams when they’re facing imminent threats.
With an effective SSPM in place, operators can use SaaS applications with confidence knowing their data is safe.
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