The Need for Automated Remediation in SaaS Security

By Noam Shaar, Co-Founder & CEO, Wing Security

For years organizations were leveraging more and more Software-as-a-Service applications to help team members collaborate, improve efficiency, and manage other on-the-job tasks. As the pandemic took hold and more employees started working remotely, the reliance on these applications has only increased.

While these applications helped improve productivity, they have also expanded organizations’ attack surfaces, limiting visibility and control. While these solutions remove some of the burden associated with updates and patches, they also create new attacker entry points that are much harder to locate and remove. The complexity of identifying, analyzing and remediating these issues can easily overwhelm an already overburdened security team.

There’s where automated remediation steps in.

As its name suggests, automatic remediation manages fixes and upgrades without human intervention. Organizations can establish the automated remediation rules their system follows, instructing the tool to disable or uninstall low security scored apps when users ignore a warning email or remove risky connection between applications (app2app), for example.

Remediation is always on, applying to new apps and new users, even with the decentralized nature of SaaS projects. You don’t have to worry about adding these new apps and users to the remediation process thanks to automated remediation.

The Need for Automatic Remediation

For security teams, automatic remediation provides a valuable service. Starting with increased visibility and analysis, a trusted automated remediation solution can address newly identified issues with minimal  human interaction. Not only does it improve accuracy – human error is always a present cybersecurity concern – but it can free cyber teams to focus on more important tasks.

Automatic remediation aims to provide an additional layer of security. While technology teams should not see it as an exemption to perform updates and not follow security best practices, the automation process can reduce some of the overall risks.

Security teams already find themselves pulled thin, juggling long-term planning and investments with day-to-day needs. Automatic remediation can remove some of that daily burden. This is critical as organizations continue to see the use of SaaS applications grow.

As companies continue to scale, automatic remediation is not just needed but essential. There are simply too many applications and security events for manual remediation to be effective, something made even more difficult with the lack of security professionals in the job market.

A Growing Attack Surface

The use of authorized SaaS applications and unauthorized shadow IT create more avenues for hackers to gain entry into your larger enterprise. With these doorways, hackers can navigate your network to find valuable information, such as your company’s financial records, intellectual property, or the personally identifiable information (PII) of customers and employees.

As this study shows, PII has grown 20-fold in companies that use SaaS applications. Managing this growing attack surface, which has expanded with increased remote work efforts as employees work on different networks, presents an enormous challenge. Even the best trained and dedicated security teams will struggle to keep pace.

SaaS applications have become a critical part of today’s work environment. Too often, though, users believe these tools are already secure since they come from a big name company or are widely used. This sense of security often comes at a price.

The Wing Difference

At Wing Security we offer a comprehensive end-to-end SaaS security platform that can help businesses discover, monitor and remediate potential security issues. This past March, we came out of stealth mode and are excited to show how our solution can remediate security for more than 100,000 SaaS applications.

We provide customers with a holistic solution that provides end-to-end coverage. Our platform discovers all the SaaS solutions used inside a company without having to install agents on users’ devices. Wing  integrates with SaaS applications and then looks for activity and the potential connections between them and your organization.

Wing also integrates with endpoints. Our platform regularly queries endpoints to gather information about what SaaS applications employees use on those machines, helping to discover all the SaaS applications  in use and offer security.

The Road Ahead

As your organization grows, ensure that your employees understand the importance of making regular security updates. Empower your employees to identify and report security vulnerabilities and participate in cyber defense.

Automating these steps can help reduce some of the burdens on individual users. It also signals that it is essential when they are requested to take action. Look for SaaS security management tools to automate as much of this process as possible.

SaaS continues to change the way that the workforce operates. Today’s remote working environment would not be possible without the thousands of SaaS applications organizations use. There are additional security components that must be addressed. Technology leaders can use these programs securely, protect important assets, and empower employees with the right tools in place.

About the Author

Noam Shaar is the CEO and Co-Founder of Wing Security. After completing a number of leading positions in IDF’s 8200 unit, retired Brigadier General Noam Shaar took on the role of IDF’s Chief Information Security Officer, managing the military’s security end to end. His background provides him with an up close and personal understanding of the pains and worries of today’s security leaders. He led large cyber organizations and operations and is no stranger to the problem at hand. Noam can be reached online through LinkedIn and at our company website https://wing.security/