The use of SaaS software has become widespread within companies. But few have resolved the critical issue of securing it. Just like your IT estate, it's essential to secure access to your SaaS software to protect the data it contains, ensure regulatory compliance and deal with potential attacks. While every SaaS is different, there are a number of best practices that can be applied to all, which we share with you in this article.
Why is it so important to secure access to SaaS software?
We have previously summarized the reasons for securing access to your SaaS software under 3 headings:
● Data protection.
● Regulatory compliance.
● Cyber attacks.
More specifically, securing access to your SaaS software will enable you to :
● Protect your employees' user accounts.
● Restrict access to data to uninvolved parties.
● Protect the personal data of your customers, employees, service providers, etc.
● Avoid malicious attacks.
● Benefit from cyber insurance.
What are the best practices for securing access to SaaS software?
1. Set up dual authentication
This technique, known as 2FA, consists in setting up a second means of identification to access your account and better protect it.
This helps prevent unexpected intrusions.
Need help with this? At Everping, we've developed expertise in over fifty SaaS applications used by modern startups and SMEs. We can help you deploy this security measure. Don't hesitate to get in touch with a member of our team..
2. Define access levels.
To protect access to your SaaS software, you can prioritize and restrict access.
Each software has its own nomenclature, but there are 3 main levels of access:
● The administrator: he can do it all. Manage, delete access, edit content...
● The user: can add, modify or delete content.
● The reader: can access and read content without being able to modify it.
3. Restrict the level of access to the right people only, and give administrator rights to the right people.
To be on the safe side, only give your staff user or reader access, and reserve administrator rights for the right people only.
4. Protect access with a strong password.
Here are the rules for choosing a strong password:
● 8 characters.
● 4 different character types among uppercase, lowercase, numbers and special characters.
● Random combination with no logical sequence.
● Combination unrelated to your business, company or identity.
So Azerty1! is not a strong password.
5. Use a password manager for shared accounts.
Do you know what a password manager is?
It's a safe that protects all your passwords, so you don't need to know them all.
More concretely, choose a single strong password that only you know. Let your password manager suggest strong passwords for your different accounts. And store your passwords securely in your password manager.
We recommend the use of market-leading solutions, and will be happy to help you implement them in your organization.
To benefit from this expertise, click here ⬅.
6. Perform regular access audits.
Check regularly :
● whether the rights granted to each of your employees are justified, and take any necessary action.
● if all active accounts in your software belong to a current employee, and deactivate/delete the accounts of outgoing employees.
7. Appoint a software manager
To make managing your SaaS easier and more secure, appoint a manager for each software application. One person can manage all your software.
This person will be responsible for creating, deleting, activating and deactivating accounts in the software within his or her scope.
This gives you total control over the creation and deletion of accesses. As well as being a good security practice, it's a way of managing the number of licenses per software and avoiding unnecessary expenditure.
8. Comply with the RGDP.
In this regard, as the CNIL reminds us, only collect data that is truly necessary to achieve your objective.
a. Keep a record of data processing.
To comply with the RGPD, it is important that you keep a listing of the type of data you hold on each piece of software.
b. List your subcontractors.
Still with RGPD compliance in mind, remember to list for each of your software (subcontractor):
● The collected data.
● Data storage location: Europe / USA / ...
● Whether the software used is RGPD-compliant.
9. Control document sharing policy outside your organization.
Define rules for external data sharing. It's important that you keep this aspect under control.
You can prohibit any external sharing, or be notified in the event of external sharing, or protect access to the shared document with a password.
You now have all the best practices for securing your SaaS software.
Our experts will be happy to help you.