SaaS Security Under Scrutiny After High Profile Breaches

Posted by skyhighnetworks on June 2nd, 2014

The firing of Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel this week underscored just how important computer security is to modern corporations. “I think it’s a clear sign that we’re in a new era, one in which companies are engaged in what you could clearly call asymmetric warfare against an insurgency,” says security expert Charles Nguyen who likens cyber intrusion to the kind of disruption companies face in war zones.

The new battlefield is almost completely invisible, with battles taking place with ones and zeroes being sent between computers at lightspeed over fiber optic cables that encircle the entire world. As commerce has become increasingly reliant on technology, new vulnerabilities are coming to light. This increased reliance on technology is converging with a shift in hacking from a hobby to the foundation of criminal enterprise and even state-sponsored military insurgency.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications being used by companies. SaaS Security is an increasingly prominent topic among those in IT security, whether at security conferences or even in the corporate boardroom. “I’ve had clients tell me they are presenting the state of their SaaS Security to the board of directors, because cloud is now a board-level concern,” says Nguyen who advises security teams at Fortune 500 companies.

But technology is not enough, he says, to achieve SaaS security. In the case of Target, the company had a security software tool that detected the breach as soon as it began. The failure lie with the security team that failed to follow up on the alert the received, while the breach continued for another week and millions of customer credit cards were stolen. For that, Nguyen says companies also need old-fashioned people and process to be secure.

Author :
Skyhigh Networks, the Cloud Security Services company, enables companies to embrace Cloud Security Services with appropriate levels of security, compliance, and governance while lowering overall risk and cost. With customers in financial services, healthcare, high technology, media, manufacturing, and legal verticals, the company was a finalist for the RSA Conference 2013 Most Innovative Company award and was recently named a "Cool Vendor" by Gartner, Inc. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Skyhigh Networks is led by an experienced team and is venture-backed by Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital. For more information, visit us at http://www.skyhighnetworks.com/saas-security/ or follow us on Twitter@skyhighnetworks.