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7 min

SaaS Application Security Best Practices: How To Protect Your App

When it comes to SaaS application security, you should spare no expense. According to IBM, a single data breach costs businesses around $4.24 million. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Apart from that, data breaches lead to productivity losses, reputational damage, lower morale in the workspace, huge penalties for non-compliance with government regulations, loss of sales, and other adverse consequences. Don’t want to experience all this? Then you should invest in proper data security measures right from the start of SaaS application development. In the following paragraphs, we’ll discuss what you can do to protect your intellectual property against cyber attacks and other security threats. You will learn: What SaaS security is and why it is critical. What challenges you might face when securing SaaS applications. What best practices for protecting your application you can follow. Let’s dive right in! Interested in the cybersecurity topic? Make sure to also check out our recent article on fintech cybersecurity. It describes common security risks in the fintech industry and shows how to prevent them. What is SaaS security? SaaS applications deal with lots of sensitive information and can be accessed from any device with an internet connection. Consequently, they’re susceptible to multiple security vulnerabilities, posing a risk to the privacy of customer data. SaaS (software as a service) security refers to the implementation of different security practices to protect SaaS platforms from cyber attacks and ensure that they meet compliance standards. These practices comprise data encryption, multi-factor authentication, user access control, network security, backup and recovery measures, and more. Why SaaS security is crucial SaaS app security should be one of your top priorities when developing cloud applications. By investing in proper data protection measures, you can: Ensure the app’s compliance with government standards and regulations. SaaS applications are required to comply with specific standards (ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, etc.) depending on the industry you’re in and your country. Failing to comply with government regulations will result in fines for your business and may lead to license loss. Protect the sensitive data of your customers. Data encryption and protection are critical for any company that offers cloud services. SaaS apps deal with credit card information, user logins and passwords, transactions, and other sensitive data that you don’t want to be compromised. Failing to protect such data will result in huge reputational damage along with lawsuits from indignant customers. For example, the American credit bureau Equifax experienced a data breach, leading to multiple lawsuits. Eventually, the company had to pay $300 million in compensation for the victims. Increase customer loyalty and trust. Nobody wants to deal with shady companies. Customers need to feel that you care about SaaS security and do your best to protect their data. Implementing strong security policies will help you increase customer loyalty and trust, leading to more sales. SaaS security challenges Strengthening the security of SaaS applications poses various challenges that you might face. Let’s take a look at some of them. Lack of control If your app is hosted in the cloud environment by a cloud provider, many security concerns fall on the provider’s shoulders, meaning that you don’t have direct control over them. Some vendors (especially cheap ones) may not invest in proper cloud security measures, putting at risk the applications they host. That’s why you should be extremely picky when choosing SaaS providers. Find a provider that adheres to industry best practices and standards and is ISO 27001 certified. Another SaaS security concern to be aware of is third-party integrations. Naturally, your system will rely on multiple applications, including payment systems, CRM platforms, analytics tools, and other solutions. This increases the risk of security issues: a vulnerability in a third-party system can open data access to your software. And the big problem is, you don’t have direct control over the security of third-party tools you integrate with. So, once again, be cautious when selecting software providers. Complex configurations Businesses rely heavily on SaaS systems. According to Chiefmartec, the average mid-sized enterprise owns more than 185 SaaS applications. Obviously, each app has its unique set of settings and configurations that are constantly tweaked to customize functionality in accordance with the needs of a specific business. Configuring these apps manually is challenging even for the most experienced security teams due to the inconsistency of settings across different systems. Achieving a balance between functionality and SaaS security is like walking on eggshells. You see, you may not be happy with the default functionality of a SaaS app. So you customize it for your specific needs. The problem is, the custom functionality you require may be in conflict with your company’s security and compliance requirements. Besides, this SaaS application will interact with other cloud solutions and internal systems. Thus, your security team will have a hard time detecting anomalies and investigating poor configurations across applications. And the more apps you rely on, the more complicated this process becomes.
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