SaaS Data Security: Understanding Shared Responsibilities

Remember the old days of working with business applications? You had to procure the software, install it in each of your employees’ systems, manually update it, and run maintenance tasks individually.

SaaS, or Software as a Service, is a cloud computing model that offers a radical shift from this traditional approach. In a SaaS model, you are not purchasing a software application. Instead, you ‘subscribe’ to it over the internet. The application is hosted remotely on the SaaS provider’s cloud server, which allows you the flexibility to scale the usage limit as per your demand, collaborate extensively, and much more.

However, while using SaaS applications, it is important to understand the nuances of data protection. Many users typically assume that the application provider will handle all security aspects. But this is not true—SaaS data security is a shared responsibility, which means you also have a crucial role in protecting your data.

With this blog post, we aim to clear the air around SaaS data protection. We will comprehensively outline the key responsibilities that SaaS providers and SaaS users take up, common misconceptions, best practices that you can employ, and much more. So, let’s get started.

The Importance of SaaS Data Protection

SaaS applications have the capability to enhance your business operations immensely, and it is rare to find a modern organization that doesn’t use them. However, as your reliance on these applications grows, protecting the vast amount of data stored in them becomes crucial and beneficial for your business.

Here are two major benefits of protecting your SaaS data:

• Prevents Data Loss: From accidental deletions to ransomware attacks and malicious insiders, there are numerous ways to lose your SaaS data. An effective SaaS data protection plan or strategy can help you overcome these issues through secure backup mechanisms.

  For instance, let’s assume that a hacker group has gained access to your SaaS application. They have encrypted the data in this application and are asking for a hefty ransom. If you don’t have a SaaS data protection strategy, you are left with two choices—pay the ransom or lose your data completely. However, with a robust SaaS data protection plan in place, you can simply use the backup to recover lost data.

• Ensures Regulatory Compliance: Your SaaS data might comprise sensitive customer information. It could feature anything from financial records and health insurance details to social security numbers and much more. Numerous regulatory frameworks govern the storage and usage of this data (PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA) and it’s up to you to ensure that you are following guidelines outlined by them.

  A SaaS data protection strategy can help you stay compliant with all the necessary regulatory mandates. On top of providing secure backups, it revolves around applying various security mechanisms like access controls, data encryption, data replication, data masking, etc. These security measures make sure that your data is effectively safeguarded while also helping you steer clear of legal complications associated with regulatory mandates.

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Who’s Really Responsible for SaaS Data Protection?

There is only one answer to this question. SaaS data protection is a shared responsibility. To further explain this statement, let’s examine this recent security incident involving Snowflake, a renowned data storage SaaS application. Snowflake’s customer environments were breached, and it was suspected that threat actors had stolen critical business data. All the initial reports suggested that threat actors breached Snowflake’s systems, through which they were able to extract critical business information. Companies like Santander Bank and Ticketmaster were some of the notable names who were impacted by this breach.

However, things took an interesting turn when cybersecurity firm Mandiant conducted an independent investigation as part of their threat intelligence initiative.

Here is an outline of Mandiant’s findings:

• Some Snowflake customer credentials were compromised through an “infostealer malware” campaign that dated back to 2020.
• These same credentials were used to initiate an attack now.
• None of these compromised user accounts had configured multi-factor authentication (MFA), and Snowflake hadn’t made MFA mandatory during the time of the attack.
• This made the attackers’ job easy as they already had valid user credentials.
• Additionally, these user accounts didn’t employ Network Allow Lists, meaning access was authenticated from untrustworthy locations.

Now, let’s rewind back to our earlier question—who’s really responsible for SaaS data protection? While analyzing this question in the wake of the Snowflake security incident, you can clearly see that security failures occurred on both sides. The users hadn’t enabled critical security features, and the provider hadn’t enforced them either. This perfectly illustrates the concept of “Shared Responsibility” in SaaS applications. Let’s get into the details and analyze each party’s responsibilities in the next section.

The Shared Responsibility Model in SaaS

The shared responsibility model describes how security responsibilities are split between SaaS providers and users. It helps both parties understand their security obligations clearly. This ensures that no mix-ups can happen while enabling enhanced protection of your SaaS data and applications.

You can apply the concept of shared responsibility to common real-life scenarios around you as well. For instance, take the case of your car. Your car manufacturer is supposed to build the vehicle with all the latest security features, which is their responsibility. Now, it is up to you to put these features to the best use. If you left your car door open and your belongings got stolen as a result, is it the fault of the car manufacturer? Definitely not. Similarly, SaaS applications have distinct security responsibilities for both you and your provider.

Common Misconceptions Around SaaS Data Protection

1. Your Data Is Always Backed Up: It is natural for you to assume that your data is automatically backed up and ready to be recovered whenever needed. But this is a dangerous misconception that can prove fatal. While SaaS providers maintain backups, they are typically ‘system-level’ backups for their infrastructure to ensure service availability, which will not contain your comprehensive business data. This means that, when working with SaaS applications, you must establish a clear data backup strategy to prevent the loss of critical business data.
2. Regulatory Compliance Is the Providers’ Headache: Your SaaS provider undergoes compliance audits and certifications. But these certifications don’t apply to your organization. It is up to you to take the necessary measures and implement controls to ensure regulatory compliance for your organization. For example, if you are handling healthcare data in a SaaS application, the provider’s compliance certifications don’t automatically make you HIPAA compliant—you must still implement appropriate access controls, maintain audit logs, and ensure proper data handling practices.
3. You Must Worry About External Threats Only: Many organizations put too much emphasis on external threats while underestimating internal security risks. But if you are a SaaS user, internal threats—whether malicious or accidental—are equally dangerous and damaging. To curb this threat, you must carefully evaluate employee permissions, manage stringent access controls, and conduct extensive user activity monitoring.

Best Practices for SaaS Data Protection

We have comprehensively examined the importance of SaaS data protection while analyzing the responsibilities of SaaS providers and SaaS users. We have also looked at the common misconceptions around SaaS data protection. Now, let’s explore some of the best practices that you must employ to ensure robust protection for your SaaS data.

• Implement Continuous Monitoring & Threat Hunting: Continuous monitoring and threat hunting can help you proactively tackle security threats. You must use automated monitoring tools to track user activities, data access patterns, and authentication attempts, which will help you spot anomalies and alert your security team, enabling quick response. You should also combine monitoring activities with advanced threat hunting and look for indicators of compromises (IoCs). This involves close examination of authentication logs, investigating unusual API calls, and much more, which will put you one step ahead of cyber adversaries.
• Use Effective Access Controls: Access controls are a crucial aspect of SaaS data protection. You must implement role-based access control (RBAC) mechanisms to assign permissions based on job roles rather than individuals. By combining it with the principle of least privilege (PoLP), you can ensure that each user has the minimum access rights required for their job functions. You should also establish a strict user management process that defines clear procedures for user provisioning and de-provisioning.
• Promote Periodic Security Training: Majority of the SaaS security incidents stem from security errors that users make. To prevent this from happening, you must conduct regular security awareness training sessions that cover a wide variety of topics, including password hygiene, phishing indicators, data handling practices, and much more. Once training sessions are over, always remember to document them and roll out simulated security scenarios to test your employees.
• Take Regular Backups: As mentioned in the earlier sections, SaaS data backup is solely your responsibility. Therefore, it is vital that you set up regular backup schedules based on data criticality and maintain multiple backup copies while testing your restore procedures constantly to make sure that everything is working perfectly. Furthermore, you should also encrypt your backed-up data and store copies in geographically separate locations.
• Set Up Incident Response Plans: It is always better to be safe than sorry. Even if you have closed down all the loopholes, there is still that tiny bit of possibility that a security incident might occur. Hence, you must develop and maintain a detailed incident response plan just in case something happens. Your plan should outline clear roles and responsibilities, communication policies, escalation procedures, etc., encompassing everything that will help you recover from a security incident effectively.

Safeguard Your SaaS Data with Gsoft

Your SaaS data is safe with Gsoft by your side. As a SaaS provider with proven expertise and experience in cybersecurity, we understand the concept of shared responsibility better than anyone else. We only deliver SaaS solutions that have undergone rigorous security testing, including regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing. We are also committed to helping you understand your security responsibilities by providing you with the necessary tools and guidance. This includes detailed security documentation, implementation guides, and 24/7 dedicated support to help you configure and maintain secure cloud environments. With our proactive patch management system, we ensure your SaaS applications stay protected against emerging threats while minimizing disruption to your business operations.

Our cloud experts are ready to:

• Assess your current SaaS security posture
• Help implement robust security controls
• Provide guidance on security best practices
• Offer ongoing support and monitoring

The Growing Impact of Shared Responsibility in SaaS Security

The impact of shared responsibility in SaaS security continues to grow. Today, organizations face an expanding array of threats to their SaaS data—from accidental deletions and system failures to sophisticated cyber-attacks (in 2023, around 31% of organizations faced SaaS application data breaches). These incidents can significantly hamper business operations and damage customer relationships. As SaaS adoption increases and threats evolve, the consequences of misunderstanding security responsibilities become more severe. Many organizations still mistakenly believe their SaaS providers will handle all aspects of data protection and recovery. However, in today’s complex digital landscape, both providers and users must fulfil their security obligations. Understanding and implementing the shared responsibility model is no longer optional—it’s a business imperative that grows more critical each day.

Want to integrate safe and secure SaaS applications into your IT stack? Book a session with our experts today.