8 SaaS Security Solutions & How to Choose the Right One [Reviewed]

An organization uses 80+ SaaS apps on average. Much sensitive data is shared with SaaS providers, often without even realizing that it could lead to a security breach.

Best 8 SaaS Security Solutions [Reviewed]

SaaS is placed at the center of the worldwide digital transformation of businesses. It is also the primary medium of cloud security risks. With a growing security awareness among enterprises, it is important for you as a SaaS provider to be proactive about security and SaaS security solutions can help you with that.

You need a comprehensive SaaS security posture management system with a web app vulnerability scanner that fits into your CI/CD pipeline so that you do not have to worry about security while rolling out new updates. It also helps if you tie up with a Security as a Service provider that offers manual pentest. Moreover, you need a SaaS security service that helps you fix the security loopholes in your systems. It is difficult to find all these qualities in a SaaS security provider. But this post will lead you to the right choice.

SaaS security breaches are scary 

Businesses use third and fourth-party applications on a daily basis. Well, SaaS usage is not limited to large enterprises, an individual trying to promote her entrepreneurial venture on Instagram might be using a third-party application as a means to a certain end. SaaS usage is often haphazard, unregulated, and scarily uncharted. And it all can lead to serious problems.

• Take Social Captain, for instance, it is an application that supposedly helps Instagram users grow followers. Apparently, the app stores the Instagram passwords of its users without any encryption.
  
  A small bug in the website allowed hackers to access the passwords and log into the associated Instagram account without authentication. If you think this is scary wait till you hear about the TeslaMate hack.

• TeslaMate is a data collection tool that collects information about various functions of Teslas – energy consumption, location history, and whatnot.
  
• A vulnerability in the app allowed 19-year-old David Colombo to hack into 25 Teslas around the globe. He could remotely open the doors, enable keyless driving, and exit the Sentry mode. 

The most difficult part about practicing secure SaaS usage is keeping track of all the apps being used and going out of use by employees. It is extremely easy to start using a SaaS tool and forget about it once it has served its purpose and it leads to the unregulated presence of third-party entities in the system.

On top of that, users love holding on to access to their apps, even when they do not need it, the result is disputable access controls. 

When a SaaS provider is hacked it results in the loss of reputation, business, and legitimacy of that service provider. The losses for the customers who are affected may range from financial losses to massive operational blockades.

3 Reasons Why SaaS Security is important

Also Read: 5 Best Cloud Security Companies: Features Offered And Factors To Consider

4 problems that SaaS security solutions can help you with

SaaS applications are fast-evolving, rapidly changing entities that need a special kind of care. A lot of security companies have built proactive SaaS security solutions specific to the needs of these applications. These are what we call SaaS security solutions.

They can range from an automated vulnerability scanner to a full-blown vulnerability assessment and penetration testing solution with manual pentest and whatnot. Most of these SaaS security solutions address a few pain points. What are those? 

The need for continuous vulnerability scanning

In the world of Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), the time between two releases has decreased significantly for SaaS providers. While the well-established players with a large client base try to keep significant releases to the minimum and ensure little or no changes in the customer experience, the new apps push code constantly, sometimes daily.

The process follows an infinite pattern of planning, coding, building, testing, deploying, monitoring, and planning again. 

This sort of agility often comes at the expense of security unless you have a SaaS security solution that fits right into the CI/CD pipeline and tests every little update for security vulnerabilities before they are put in production. 

Automated periodic security testing

Even if you are not releasing new updates regularly, regular security tests are not optional. Even as a SaaS provider you use other applications, and third-party associates to run your business and to keep your site functional.

A new vulnerability can take root in any of these multiple agents connected to your operations. Since you have to run a company observing a thousand different things, a SaaS security solution can help you keep a tap on all emerging vulnerabilities that might concern you.

With a good SaaS security application, you can schedule periodic scans and forget about it. You will be alerted whenever something needs your attention.

 Compliance and Certifications

Security compliances play a vital role in developing your trustworthiness in the market. As a service provider, you may need ISO27001 certification or SOC 2 compliance certification, depending on your area of business you might also need PCI-DSS or HIPAA.

The point here is that preparing for compliance, nailing the audit, and maintaining compliance through time might seem like a lot of work unless you are getting some help. A SaaS security solution can chip in. A specific tool may help you conduct compliance-specific scans that identify the vulnerabilities that may come up as blockers during the compliance audits.

Security posture management

Security posture management is an umbrella that covers all of the above and more. It is a complete organizational system that oversees every aspect of your company’s security – from vulnerability management to compliance.

As a SaaS provider in an increasingly volatile cyber-security environment, you want to have a strong security posture management system in place. A solid SaaS security solution can help you in this respect. 

With a SaaS security solution like Astra’s Pentest, you get an intuitive dashboard that allows you to monitor, assign, and manage vulnerabilities, communicate with security experts, run compliance-specific scans, and get detailed reports about your security posture along with step-by-step guidelines to fix those issues.

8 Best SaaS Security Solutions

By now we’ve established what SaaS security is and why you should be concerned about it. You have been made familiar with the top SaaS security solutions, here go some more details about them.

Astra Pentest

Astra Pentest is a comprehensive solution for your vulnerability assessment and penetration testing needs. The security researchers and engineers at Astra Security have put a lot of thought into the Astra pentest suite to create a robust security solution that is also incredibly easy to operate.

Astra Pentest combines a powerful automated scanner with manual pentesting capabilities to give you a solid handle on your SaaS security posture while you can manage all of it through an interactive dashboard. 

The tool integrates with your CI/CD pipeline empowering you with continuous scanning for vulnerabilities with each new update. The scanner rules are updated every week, so you can stay ahead of the cyber-threat movements.

Key features

• Scan behind the logged-in pages
• 8000 + test cases
• Continuous scanning
• Zero false positives
• Thorough remediation support
• Publicly verifiable certificate

Netskope

Netskope is a SaaS security platform that puts a lot of stress on visibility and real-time threat protection. Netskope is a proponent of the SASE model of security. SASE stands for Secure Access Service Edge.

“SASE combines network security functions (such as SWG, CASB, FWaaS, and ZTNA), with WAN capabilities (i.e., SDWAN) to support the dynamic secure access needs of organizations.” ~ Gartner 

Netskope has a CASB program. It also assists you in SaaS security posture management.

Key features

• Cloud Firewall
• Remote browser isolation
• Advanced security analytics
• SaaS security posture management

Lacework

Lacework has built a platform to create visibility into threats across a multi-cloud environment. It works for AWS, GCP, Azure, and Kubernetes environments. The data-driven cloud security platform by Lacework is called Polygraph. It helps you prioritize security fixes and remove silos in terms of risk mitigation.

It brings vulnerability management and threat detection onto the same platform, which is something a lot of SaaS providers can benefit from.

Key features

• Infrastructure as code security
• Cloud security for startups
• Container security

Fidelis Halo

Fidelis Halo is a platform that is specifically designed to tackle cloud security challenges. It helps you by automating your security posture management to a great extent, provides cloud workload protection, and ensures the security of your container stack. 

Key features:

• Visibility into multi-cloud environments 
• Real-time risk analysis
• Uses machine learning and statistical modeling to uncover threats
• High fidelity alerts

Qualys

Qualys is a pretty well-rounded SaaS security solution with apps built for vulnerability management, cloud security assessment, and threat protection. You can get a 30-day free trial of some services offered by Qualys.

Key features

• Continuous monitoring
• Patch management
• Cloud infrastructure security
• Asset management
• Compliance assistance

Skyflow

Skyflow offers security, compliance, and governance through an API. It helps you build polymorphic encryption by using multiple encryptions and tokenization techniques. It also helps you set up data control policies and implement analytics for better consumption of data while maintaining compliance.

Key features

• Zero trust data privacy vault
• Data encryption
• Secure lambda functions for running data logic
• Secure data sharing

Acunetix

Acunetix is a web application security scanner used by over 2000 businesses. It’s a wholesome solution for web application security-related tasks like researching zero days, finding vulnerabilities, triaging them, creating dev tickets to fix them, and guiding the devs through the remediation process. Acunetix combines DAST and IAST to detect 7000+ vulnerabilities covering the OWASP top 10.

Key features

• Lightning fast vulnerability scanning
• Scanning multiple environments at the same time
• Scheduling recurring scans
• Scanning password-protected areas

Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks is a well-established well-rounded security company with offerings ranging from network security to incident response including security operations, SASE and cloud-native security.

This SaaS security solution helps you with cloud workload protection and cloud security posture management.

Key features

• Managed threat hunting
• Digital forensics
• Endpoint protection
• Data loss prevention

Congratulations! You have reached the end of our list of the best SaaS security solutions.

Final thoughts

SaaS security has been one of the central concerns among businesses leveraging the power of SaaS and the cloud. SaaS providers must treat security as a mission-critical issue and get the best help possible. We have covered a lot of different types of SaaS security solutions.

You may or may not need all the different services and features mentioned in the article. But you will definitely need certain features like CI/CD integration, continuous testing, certification, and manual assistance in remediation. As far as these are concerned Astra has you covered.

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