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Spending for software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications is projected to grow 17.9% to $197 billion in 2023, then grow another 17.7% to $232 billion in 2024. This rapid growth is being fueled by several factors including the desire to modernize IT environments and enable hybrid workers, who might login from a branch office one day and a hotel room the next.
Security challenges with SaaS apps
This mobility is highly convenient and can boost worker productivity, however, it can also create new challenges for IT professionals tasked with securing SaaS apps and the sensitive data they consume and create. In addition, SaaS apps must often be connected to each other to share data and information, creating new risk vectors and challenges such as:
- SaaS applications don’t work natively together, and point-to-point integrations are burdensome.
- Application data is highly variable and lacks standardization that increases security risks.
- Employee productivity can be compromised.
- SaaS apps store sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII) and audit and event logs in cloud object storage services.
Introducing AWS AppFabric
To help alleviate the security challenges presented by SaaS applications, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched the AWS AppFabric service. AWS AppFabric quickly connects SaaS applications across the organization so IT and security teams can easily manage and secure applications using a standard schema. It also automates task management and generates insights with a common generative AI assistant so employees can complete everyday tasks faster. AppFabric natively connects SaaS productivity and security applications to each other, automatically normalizing application data for administrators to set common policies, and empowering employees to get answers quickly.
Netskope Helps to Discover and Protect Sensitive Data Stored by AppFabric
AppFabric stores security logs and sensitive data used by applications in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Therefore, storage buckets need to be routinely scanned to identify any sensitive data, ensure that data can’t be accessed by unauthorized apps or users, and remediate threats such as malware. Netskope identifies and scans Amazon S3 buckets using advanced Netskope DLP policies. Netskope enhances data security in cloud environments, enabling organizations to protect sensitive information and maintain compliance. It leverages advanced scanning capabilities, AI, and ML to identify and classify sensitive data, detect potential security risks, and enforce data protection policies. Some key benefits include:
- Sensitive data discovery and inspection: Find, classify, and protect sensitive data stored in public cloud storage services with Netskope’s advanced pattern and profile capabilities. Inspection can leverage 3,000+ data identifiers and 1,600+ file types, keyword matching, regular expressions and dictionaries, Boolean operations, exact data match and fingerprinting capabilities, and optical character recognition (OCR) for images containing text.
- Customizable and unified DLP policies: Leverage predefined existing DLP policies or create new ones to optimize alerting workflows and prevent false positives. Utilize these policies across Netskope products for a consistent, unified DLP strategy.
- Retroactive scanning: Full account scan to discover sensitive data and malware already stored in existing public cloud storage services.
- Ongoing scanning: Enforcement of robust data DLP policies and can also detect violations such as unauthorized data sharing, access, and downloads.
- Malware detection: Discover malware hidden in Amazon S3 and prevent it from spreading.
- Compliance: Verify Amazon S3 bucket security posture against predefined best practice rules and industry standards including CIS, NIST, HIPAA, PCI, GDPR, CCA, and CSA. Choose from 40+ predefined, customizable templates.
- Accelerated remediation: Integrate with ServiceNow, Jira, and more via Netskope Cloud Ticket Orchestrator and gain access to alerts and compliance results via RESTful API.
Summary
As organizations increase their use of SaaS apps, they should also consider deploying AWS AppFabric which connects SaaS applications for better application security and worker productivity. And Netskope helps to discover, classify, and protect any sensitive information stored in Amazon S3 buckets by SaaS apps and AppFabric.
Click here to learn more: https://www.netskope.com/solutions/netskope-for-aws
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