Managing today’s technology stack is like holding water in your hands. The corporate network has turned into an ecosystem of decentralized applications, and the sheer amount of cloud-based tools in use makes traditional network security almost completely obsolete. New software solutions are often deployed by departments to solve urgent problems, completely bypassing the traditional procurement process. This creates a massive visibility problem that IT and security teams must face.
As the old saying goes, “You cannot secure what you cannot see.” But for chief information security officers and IT managers, the problem of discovering these hidden layers of cloud applications is the most important challenge in securing the organizational perimeter.
The Shadow IT Problem
Employees may be well-intentioned when they sign up for yet another productiveness tool or file-sharing application, thinking that it will enable them to be more productive and efficient in their jobs. However, these applications pose tremendous security risks to the network, and IT teams are completely unaware of the application’s existence in the network.
As such, they cannot enforce password policies, set up two-factor authentication, or even determine whether the application provider meets corporate compliance standards. This creates massive blind spots in the network, where corporate data remains completely unprotected, awaiting the inevitable breach that will expose the company’s data.
Data Fragmentation
As the number of third-party platforms grows, the data of the company ends up spreading across the internet. The data is not stored in an organized, secure environment anymore. The data is now stored in various third-party applications, like customer relationship management, marketing automation, etc. The flow of this data is impossible to track without the right software environment visibility.
The problem is that the company is not aware of the data that is going in and out of the company without the right document management software and environment visibility. The data, like a document with financial projections, may leave the company via a cloud drive that is approved by the company, only to end up in an unknown external portal, of which the company is not even aware.
Over-Provisioned Permissions
Another major problem that is faced by companies is the over-provisioned permissions that are not monitored by the company, leading to security headaches that are difficult to tackle without the right software environment visibility. The problem is that the company is not aware of the permissions that are granted to the users of the company, especially when the user is transferred from one position to another, which may require the user to have access to certain files that they may need temporarily.
Establishing a Proactive Security Foundation
The first step that needs to be taken is that the company needs to make the visibility of the software environment their absolute top priority, which means that the company needs to have a clear picture of the applications that are interacting with the company’s network, as well as the insights that are needed about the users of the company. The best way this can be done is by leveraging the best SaaS security posture management (SSPM) solutions, which helps the company in creating a safe and manageable software environment by shedding light on the dark corners of the company’s software environment.
Madeline Miller love to writes articles about gaming, coding, and pop culture.
