Securing and Managing SaaS Apps
One of the primary concerns of IT and business decision-makers regarding Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications is security.
Although most SaaS vendors have been able to demonstrate that their cloud-based applications are secure from an operational point-of-view, there are still access control issues which enterprises need to address to ensure their corporate data is fully secure from an end-user perspective.
It is becoming particularly important to address these issues because SaaS applications are gaining popularity in today’s increasingly challenging economic climate.
The economy is also producing a new round of layoffs which means businesses need to be especially vigilant about how they manage user access to their SaaS applications to be sure laid off employees do not inadvertently or intentionally compromise sensitive or proprietary corporate data.
I’ve had the privilege of participating in two recent webcasts regarding these issues hosted by OutProtect and Symplified. These companies, and others such as Conformity, Ping Identity and Tricipher, are offering varying approaches to single sign-on (SSO) access control, usage tracking and centralized management of multiple SaaS applications.
Although on-demand SaaS has proven to be more secure than most on-premise applications, these SaaS security and management solutions are still worthwhile because cost-effective, end-user management and security will become even more essential as the SaaS market experiences accelerated growth due to the current economic crisis.