With how fast the SaaS industry is growing, it will have to deal with a lot of challenges. One of the most significant of these is cybersecurity. Here, your startup business needs to be ready to protect your users from cyber threats while they’re exploring your service.
But how do you do that? And where do you go for help in this effort? Let’s explore this further and discover effective strategies.
The Challenges Of SaaS Cybersecurity For Your Startup Business
While cybersecurity has always been a hot topic for software companies, SaaS introduces some unique challenges. These challenges come about due to the nature of the business model. The open nature of a SaaS service means that anyone can readily access it. With that, it can be very open to potential attacks. Some of the issues that you can encounter include the following.
Data Theft
Data theft is the most common threat that many SaaS businesses have to deal with. When implementing the model, your company will often need to make customer data readily accessible from the outside. That makes them ripe for data thieves.
Poor data practices can make the problem worse, as it can expose even more confidential data. However, you need to balance between secure data and easy customer access. That can sometimes be hard with a limited team.
Phishing Attacks
Cyber attackers don’t even need to target your services directly. About 90% of these attacks often begin with phishing. Attackers spoof your service and lure customers into divulging critical account information. They then use this information to access user accounts illegally.
What makes these phishing attacks challenging to deal with is they often happen offsite. Hence, you only have a limited ability to protect your customers from it. All you can do is provide them with support to deal with these attacks.
Unknown Exploits
With how complex SaaS products are, it can sometimes be hard tracking how they work. Here, you might miss issues that can lead to security vulnerabilities. 40% of attacks often use these exploits to breach your system.
One of the common forms of exploitation is cloud misconfiguration. It can occur when your backend team makes an error in configuring the system. Such misconfigurations might look innocuous but can result in serious issues later. These exploits can also happen at the individual customer level when users do not configure their cloud settings correctly.
Compliance Concerns
Changing industry standards can also affect your cybersecurity. Often, these changes can render your current practices unsuitable. They might also create compatibility issues with your system.
As such, your SaaS startup business should constantly be in touch with the various regulations. You will also need to ensure that your auditing processes are efficient. All of these might require you to get additional help.
Challenge Of Connected Platforms
A unique cybersecurity concern emerging in SaaS recently is the risks brought about by interconnected platforms. Customers that use multiple services would often want some form of integration for all of them. While developers are ready to provide them with that, it creates an uneasy situation. An exploit in one of these services can lead to an attack on the others connected to it.
Here, the challenge lies in more than just trying to defend from more potential entries of attacks. You have to determine how to make your system more secure while giving customers interconnectivity. That requires a lot of balancing between the two aspects.
How Your SaaS Startup Business Should Increase Cybersecurity
With these challenges, your SaaS startup business needs to plan how to beef up its security the right way. Here, you should ensure that users have ample protection while connected to your service. You also need to provide some form of off-service support in certain situations.
The Things SaaS Security Needs To Prioritize
Given the complexity of SaaS products, there are specific areas you should pay attention to when developing your security strategy. These include:
- Encryption and key management: Effective encryption and handling of their associated keys are at the core of the SaaS security environment. Hence, you want an efficient way of handling both.
- Identity and access management: You should ensure that only legitimate users can access your service.
- Security telemetry and monitoring: This refers to identifying and reporting potential threats to your user base. It helps them take the necessary precautions and secure their accounts.
- Incident response: You need an efficient system for reporting security breaches and helping your users deal with the aftermath.
By structuring your security strategy around these points, you create a system that best responds to security issues. Beyond these major points, you should also account for specific security points relevant to your service.
Helping Your SaaS Startup Business Beef Up Security
Of course, just having your security plan in place is not enough. You need to actively run your security measures to ensure your users are well-guarded. Virtua Solutions is ready to provide you with the support you need for this work.
Ensuring Patch Schedules Are On Time
An important SaaS security task that you need to do is to patch your service regularly. Here, our project management team will be the one to keep track of the patch schedule. We will also monitor the issues your recent patches might cause and report back. With that, you can roll out the latest one without worrying about missed details.
Improving Real-Time Vulnerability Monitoring
Various automated tools can make it easier for you to track down vulnerabilities in real-time. That helps your team respond faster to these issues. However, you will still need the keen eyes of observers to spot other issues. Our support team is ready to help you with the monitoring task and will provide the detailed reports you need.
Educating Your Employees And Customers About Cybersecurity
Arguably the most effective protection you can provide your SaaS ecosystem is through educating the people that use and manage it. Our team can provide you with various employee and customer education support for that purpose. From maintaining your knowledge base to conducting cybersecurity seminars, we will ensure everyone gets the relevant information on beefing up their security.
Keep Your SaaS Startup Business Well Protected With Our Help
These various cybersecurity threats will always be present. However, your SaaS startup business can deal with these effectively with the right partner. Sign up with us today and we are ready to lend you a helping hand.