5 ways a Human Risk Management Platform could support SaaS Security Posture Management
Software as a Service (SaaS) applications have become indispensable for organisations in today's digital landscape. From collaboration tools enabling better communication, to SaaS applications that streamline operations, enhance productivity, and support remote work. However, their convenience comes with significant security challenges—many of which stem from human errors, insider threats, and inadequate configuration practices.
This is where SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) plays a crucial role. By automating the monitoring, management, and optimisation of SaaS security configurations, SSPM helps organisations address the human risks lurking in their SaaS environments.
In this article, we will discuss how your organisation can incorporate SSPM into its wider human risk management strategy.
What is SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM)?
SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) is a specialised category of cloud security solutions designed to assess and improve the security configurations of SaaS applications continuously. It ensures that SaaS environments comply with industry best practices and regulatory requirements.
SSPM tools typically provide:
Real-time monitoring of security configurations
Automated detection and remediation of misconfigurations
User activity tracking to identify anomalies
Compliance with frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO 27001
By offering centralised visibility and control over SaaS applications, SSPM helps organisations safeguard sensitive data, reduce operational risks, and enhance overall cloud security.
Why should organisations consider SSPM?
SaaS applications are highly customisable and user-friendly, which makes them powerful, but also prone to misconfigurations. A single unchecked setting can expose sensitive data to unauthorised users or put an organisation at risk of a data breach.
SSPM addresses these risks by ensuring:
Data protection: Prevents unintentional data exposure caused by misconfigured sharing settings or excessive user permissions.
Compliance assurance: Keeps SaaS configurations aligned with regulatory standards, reducing the risk of costly fines and reputational damage.
Enhanced efficiency: Automates security management tasks, allowing security teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than manual configuration checks.
Support for ZeroTrust: Reinforces the Zero Trust model by continuously validating the security of SaaS environments.
Beyond these technical advantages, SSPM is particularly valuable for mitigating human-related cyber risks, which account for a significant portion of SaaS security incidents. Forrester predicted that 90% of cyber breaches in 2024 would be human-related.
How Human Risk Management (HRM) supports SSPM
Cyber security is as much about people as it is about technology. While SSPM protects the infrastructure of SaaS applications, Human Risk Management (HRM) ensures that people interacting with these systems follow secure practices.
It’s all good and well having tools in place that flag SaaS misconfigurations, but if an organisation only has oversight of 50% of the SaaS applications being used by employees, how can IT teams be sure there are not gaps in their security?
Organisations considering SaaS security posture management (SSPM) should look at building it into a wider Human Risk Management strategy:
1. Preventing misconfigurations and behavioural mistakes
Many SaaS-related breaches are caused by human errors, such as misconfigured settings, inadvertent data sharing, or poorly managed access controls. However, employees using company-approved software and tools are less likely to have unchecked autonomy in setting up applications.
For instance, imagine an employee attempting to use an unauthorised file-sharing application. With an HRM platform integrated into their browser, they would receive a notification alerting them that the application is unapproved and poses a risk to the organisation. The platform would provide immediate guidance to help the employee understand the potential risks of their actions and redirect them to a company-approved application.
This approved tool would have the proper configurations and access controls in place, minimising the risk of cybersecurity incidents.
2. Strengthening Access Management
Access management poses significant challenges for many organisations and is a key consideration in SSPM strategies. While SSPM is effective at auditing and restricting access, it is equally important to identify and address access risks as they arise.
Imagine a scenario where an employee shares their login credentials for a workplace tool with a colleague, sending the password through a messaging platform like Teams. This action grants unauthorised access to the tool, inadvertently creating vulnerabilities for the organisation.
With an HRM tool in place, security teams would be alerted when the credentials were shared on Teams. An automated workflow could then send a real-time Nudge to the employee, encouraging them to reconsider their action. This moment of reflection could enable the employee to prevent the behaviour with a single click. If they choose to proceed, the security team would gain visibility of the risk via the HRM dashboard, flagging the incident and highlighting the risky behaviour.
3. Mitigating Insider Threats
Insider threats, whether malicious or accidental, continue to pose significant risks to SaaS environments. While SSPM can monitor SaaS applications for unusual activity, such as unauthorised data downloads, it often detects issues only after the damage has been done.
Now, imagine if an organisation had an HRM tool in place that provided detailed insights into employee behaviours, identifying patterns and flagging potential risks that could indicate an insider threat. That would be incredibly valuable, wouldn’t it? And if that same HRM platform could automatically intervene to prevent certain risky behaviours, stopping threats before they escalate, that would be even more effective, right?
4. Curbing Shadow IT
Shadow IT presents a significant challenge for organisations, as it bypasses established IT security protocols, often leading to unapproved applications being used within the company. While SSPM plays a crucial role in detecting and highlighting shadow IT, helping to bring these unsanctioned applications under control, HRM can enhance this process by addressing the human factors contributing to these risks.
By leveraging advanced, data-driven HRM tools such as CultureAI, security teams can gain real-time visibility into shadow IT risks. These tools not only provide insights into which applications are being used but also allow for automated interventions that reduce the potential for cyber vulnerabilities.
5. Responding to Phishing
Phishing attacks remain one of the most prevalent and dangerous human-related cybersecurity threats, particularly in the context of SaaS applications. Whilst SSPM is great at enhancing security through methods like MFA, that is not robust enough to prevent human-error.
HRM tools are specifically designed to identify employees who are most vulnerable to phishing attacks and help mitigate these risks before they result in a breach. Through automated simulated phishing attacks, Just-In-Time (JIT) coaching and automated interventions, HRM can support employees in reducing risky security behaviours.
(Certain HRM tools can also prevent risks at an MFA level too, adding an extra, extra, layer of security!)
How SSPM and HRM create a proactive defence strategy
When SSPM and HRM are integrated, they create a proactive and holistic cyber security framework, by offering shared visibility into SaaS use, user behaviour insights, automated risk reduction, improved incident response, and the contribution to fostering a more robust security culture.
While SSPM secures the technical foundation of SaaS applications, HRM addresses the human factors that contribute to cyber risks. Together, they empower organisations to not only protect their SaaS environments but also foster a security-conscious workforce.