SaaS Monitoring, sold through the MSP channel for the MSP to add enhanced security at an affordable price point

SaaS Alerts

Cybersecurity is a top priority for businesses of all sizes. But with an ever-growing number of , implementing a comprehensive security solution can be daunting and time-consuming. threats That's where SaaS comes in. SaaS (software-as-a-service) is a delivery model for software that allows organizations to access and use the software from a remote location. Businesses can deploy cybersecurity solutions quickly and easily without managing the software themselves. In this article, I shall highlight five ways SaaS can help speed up . cybersecurity implementation What is cybersecurity implementation? Cybersecurity implementation is the process that protects your organization's systems from cyberattacks. It sets up and implements measures to secure an organization's networks and data. There are many reasons why an organization might need to implement cybersecurity measures. The common one is to comply with regulations, such as the . Other reasons might include protecting the organization's assets, preventing cybercrime, and mitigating fallout from any incidents. EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) What is SaaS exactly, and what does it provide? SaaS is a cloud-based service that allows people and businesses to manage their workflow from a single access point across a remote server without bothering about hardware and software requirements or dedicated IT personnel — which drives up the cost of conscious cybersecurity. SaaS provides a suite of tools and services that businesses can use to manage their security resources more efficiently — it provides an all-in-one solution for managing security and compliance. Moreover, SaaS solutions are often cheaper than buying separate security products or hiring dedicated cybersecurity staff. SaaS speeds up cybersecurity implementation by providing the tools and resources you need to protect your data and systems. It provides you with IT management capabilities. Therefore, you can centrally manage all your technology resources from one location. That allows you to identify and respond to incidents quickly. It also helps you to protect your data and system from damage. In addition, SaaS can help you to keep track of all the changes made to systems and data, which enables you to identify any potential threats or vulnerabilities as early as possible. That also helps you protect your system and the data thereon against costly cyberattacks that could result from undetected security flaws. Not only that, SaaS offers automation features that help you automate processes and integrate security measures into your overall workflow. As a result, it makes it easier for you to track all your security updates and ensure that they're applied. Finally, SaaS provides 24/7 support, so you can get help when you need it. It offers real-time alerts and notifications about suspicious activities, ensuring administrators are always aware of potential security threats. That can help them take appropriate action quickly and minimize the risk of damage or theft. What are the benefits of SaaS to cybersecurity implementation? Since the advent of cloud-based applications, businesses have relied on software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to help speed up their cybersecurity implementation. SaaS solutions offer tremendous benefits in terms of convenience, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. The following are five ways SaaS can help speed up cybersecurity implementation. 1. : SaaS platforms can automatically detect and classify new cyber threats, allowing faster identification and response. Automated detection and classification of threats 2. : SaaS platforms ensure that users are always up-to-date with the latest security patches and threats. That helps to mitigate potential vulnerabilities before they become critical. Real-time updates and alerts 3. : With SaaS solutions, businesses can quickly deploy customized solutions that meet specific needs and requirements. That accelerates the cybersecurity deployment process and reduces overall costs. Rapid deployment of customized solutions 4. : Most SaaS platforms are compatible with many devices, including computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. That allows users to access their data anywhere and also enables them to work on different devices simultaneously without compromising security or performance. Compatibility with multiple devices 5. : SaaS platforms host on cloud servers; therefore, they tend to be scalable. That enables you to scale up or down as needed. If your business starts to experience increased demand for security services, for example, you can quickly add more resources to handle the increase in demand and vice versa. Scalable infrastructure What are the types of SaaS solutions available for cybersecurity implementation? There are different types of SaaS solutions designed for cybersecurity purposes. Some of the most popular ones include: solutions allow businesses to manage their security operations centrally from one location. They can help optimize efficiency and ensure that all staff work towards a common goal. Security Operations Management (SOM) solutions help prevent sensitive data from being lost or stolen. They can also identify and block unauthorized access to your data, protecting it from cyberattacks. Data loss prevention (DLP) tools can detect malicious activity before it has a chance to cause damage. They can also provide real-time alerts about potential threats so you can take action quickly! Advanced Threat Detection (ATD) programs help employees learn about safe online practices and how to protect themselves against attacks. They help them stay aware of potential threats before they happen and reduce the time the employees need to defend against such threats later. Security Awareness Training (SAT) SaaS is a great way to facilitate cybersecurity implementation because it can provide a centralized platform for managing all security-related activities across an organization's various systems. That includes everything, from detecting potential threats to responding quickly and effectively when something goes wrong. With SaaS, organizations can also centrally manage their IT resources, keep track of asset performance, and deploy new security measures as needed. In addition, SaaS can help reduce the cost of cybersecurity compliance by automating many of the tasks involved in implementing security measures. Now that you have learned how SaaS can speed up cybersecurity implementation, it is time to choose the right platform. What type of cybersecurity solution do you need for your business? The world is digitalizing ubiquitously. Cybercriminals are exploiting the vulnerabilities thereof to have access to sensitive data to use for financial fraud or identity theft. Therefore, you and your business need to adopt proactive cybersecurity implementation measures by employing the appropriate best-in-class SaaS solution today.

5 Ways SaaS Can Help Speed Up Cybersecurity Implementation

It’s all too easy to feel superior to the rest of the world when you work in IT day in and day out. And it’s easy to judge “the common people” for falling victim to cybersecurity scams that your highly trained BS radars would flag in a hot second. Losing patience with the business users at your company is understandable. The truth is, I do it all the time with my clients. You thought clicking on that banner ad and then installing that app was a good idea? Really? But I’m working on getting better at keeping it all in perspective. One thing that’s helped me a lot in this regard is reminding myself that I was once naïve, too. Maybe you’ll find this exercise in perspective as helpful as I’ve found it to be. It’s all about finding the right entry point for remembering your own vulnerabilities. Maybe you fell for the old “I’ll trade you my nickel for your dime and you’ll win because the nickel’s bigger” routine. My cousin still owes me five cents for that one. Or maybe you got duped into passing a note to the wrong person, blowing up a romantic scandal in the tender middle school years. Getting back to actual cybersecurity talk, my point is this – even the most experienced IT professional would feel a wee bit unsure of themselves in a hospital operating room, or even behind the controls of an InstaPot. Despite what you might believe about your IT prowess, you weren’t born knowing how to avoid scams and sidestep security breaches. You might have learned these things a long time ago, but you still had to learn them, just like everyone else does. So let’s look at this from a human perspective, and send a little love – as well as some good, common sense technical solutions – out to the great unwashed. Love matters, people, even in the world of cybersecurity. And yes, software helps, too. 1. Don’t blame the phishing victims By now most email users know there is no Nigerian prince waiting to send them a pile of . There’s really no excuse for falling for that one – feel free to act a bit superior there. But nowadays, phishing scammers are doing their homework to lay ever more sophisticated traps. naira Corporate phishing, whereby a scammer might infiltrate the company system by impersonating the boss, is booming; the Better Business Bureau reports that instances of this type of scam last year. A friend of mine – a smart, internet-savvy friend who just started a new job at a data intelligence company – called me in a panic the other day. She fell for it, responding to a request from her “boss” to send Amazon gift cards to new “partners,” to the tune of $2000. She was devastated. tripled in one quarter alone When it happens, keep it in perspective. Wouldn’t you step and fetch to an email from your boss asking you to send a check, or sensitive data, or anything else to someone ASAP? Given that the phishing scammers are stepping up their game, it’s up to you to respond in kind. Instead of training your team to identify phishing emails by sending them all the same simulations, you can use ’s AI-powered simulations to send employees personalized messages, using the real names of people they correspond with and rewarding them for their educational progress. Hoxhunt Image source: Hoxhunt Stand-alone training seminars are nice and all, and they make the boss feel good, because they are “proactively addressing the problem.” But they don’t teach in real time, when the employees least expect it. And that is the key to learning what phishing really looks like, and how to avoid being the guy standing at the register using his company card to send a bogus money order. 2. Don’t let (the internet of) things get you down It’s hard enough keeping control of company laptops, tablets and phones. Now you have to worry about the fridge in the kitchen that automatically reminds Karen when it’s time to restock her tofu, or whatever that stuff is she eats every day. All of those IoT devices in the office – printers, entrance locks, thermostats, even coffee machines – typically come with super lax default security systems to make them easy to set up. And super lax means higher risk of infection from malware. Image source: SentinelOne Don’t hate on that HR rep who “needs” to print applicants’ resumes from his personal Android phone. He’s only doing what comes naturally in our hyper-connected lifestyles. Instead, use to easily map all the devices on your network and make sure they’re all configured properly and safely. SentinelOne endpoint protection 3. Don’t throw shade on shadow SaaS users Indeed, the age of BYOD is well afoot, and it’s not just remote workers who are using their own gadgets to get work done. Unless you provide company phones, tablets and the rest (and even if you do), you can bet your team is doing company work on their own devices. And increasingly, the same is true for software, given the popularity and ease of adoption for SaaS applications. Line-of-business team members don’t “need” IT anymore to start using new apps, or to add new users onto a platform they’re already using. And while to you it looks like it’s being done in the shadows, outside your reach, remember that they only want to use the tools they believe will allow them to do their jobs most efficiently. Instead of throwing shade, you can use , a SaaS management solution, to receive alerts and trigger automated workflows when a new SaaS app is added to the mix. Torii Image source: Torii Torii easily gets IT back in the driver’s seat when it comes to SaaS usage in your company. You’ll get at-a-glance insights into who’s using what, what it’s costing, what access permissions each app has, who’s on there that shouldn’t be, and where budgets are being wasted on empty seats. SaaS is here to stay – even small businesses are using SaaS applications heavily nowadays, and spending is only growing. Take control of it, and then control the urge to throttle your end users. 4. Don’t pass out over bad password management “They’ll never crack this one,” your COO thought, only minutes after replying to a publicly available Facebook thread where everyone was sharing the names of their favorite pets (Fluffy, we gather) and their moms’ maiden names. So yes, you could say that his accounts have been compromised. And because he uses this password it for all of his accounts, you’ve got a big headache. Weak passwords, and using the same password for multiple platforms, is deadly. For IT folks like us, this concept seared into our brains. But honestly, isn’t there just one aspect of your own life where you do this too? If not, my cap is off to you. Still, we’ve all got work to do. And we all log into SaaS apps and other gated accounts day in and day out. Take your company’s password management up a notch and start using . 1Password for Business Image source: 1Password It takes the same kind of password management you probably already use in your personal world and expands it across the enterprise. No need to expect those feeble-minded cronies down in the bizdev department to memorize multiple super-secure character strings anymore. Just one meta login takes care of it all. You can also use the business version of this tool to manage groups and maintain an at-a-glance view of potential trouble spots. 5. Don’t lose it over 2FA Sure, two-factor authentication is a great way to maximize cyber-safety, but the fact is, it’s a pain. It’s an extra step in a day filled with extra steps. So when people at your company have the option to use password-based authentication only, they’re going to do so. Instead of haranguing employees to be more vigilant, and shaming Tony in receiving for that little oopsie last month, introduce the team to 2FA solution , to simplify 2FA and sync it across all platforms and devices. You can even use Authy to add 2FA layers to apps and platforms that don’t natively support this feature. Authy Image: Authy It has a great backup function that kicks in when phones get lost (like, every day), using encrypted data. So getting a new device up and working is no longer a massive headache. Final words Look, it’s a scary world out there. And there’s enough ugly going on already. Instead of scoffing, be kind. Start using the tools you need to empower your team protect the realm you share. We’ll all be a lot better off for it. The author of this article has no business relationships with any of the products or companies mentioned therein.

How I Learned To Stop Judging People for Falling Into Cybersecurity Traps

The growing reliance on software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications to run critical business functions keeps expanding the cloud-based attack surface. Yet, effectively securing cloud-based third-party services and resources is a complex task often relegated to a later time when resources and knowledge will be available. Why Do You Need SSPM Recommended best practices by industry standard bearers are largely reliant on manual documentation. published by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) in July 2021 also relies on self-reported lists of included materials. The Minimum Elements for a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) report Even the relies on non-digital due diligence questions related to the supplier’s reliability from multiple angles, ranging from financial stability to organizational stature, external influence, and maliciousness, including organizational security. MITRE System of Trust (SoT) The amount of manual work required to ingest these reports and coordinate their content when integrating a SaaS into a network is considerable and the process is impractical. In addition, the constant growth in sanctioned, unsanctioned, and forgotten SaaS apps has created sprawl that makes these apps difficult to govern and monitor. Without visibility, these shadow ITs proliferate, expanding the unmonitored, yet exploitable, attack surface. This is where SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) comes in handy. SSPM tools focus specifically on managing the security configurations and access controls of SaaS apps. What Is SSPM SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) tools are specialized to help manage the security settings, configurations, and access controls of a portfolio of SaaS applications. SSPM tools provide visibility into the up-to-date state of SaaS security in areas like user permissions, asset inventory, and regulatory compliance. It then enforces secure baselines and adjusts configurations to remediate issues as they occur. SSPM focuses specifically on the unique requirements of SaaS environments and the growing landscape of cloud-based apps being adopted. Gartner has recognized SSPM as an emerging market segment fueled by the growth of SaaS adoption. Supplying these dedicated security tools is a rising cluster of vendors such as Zscaler, Obsidian Security, Adaptive Shield, Spin.AI, and many others. These companies integrate with an organization’s existing identity provider and SaaS apps and then layer on analysis, monitoring, and automation capabilities purpose-built to manage ongoing security risks as user permissions rapidly expand across growing app portfolios. Exploring the Multifaceted Applications of SSPM SSPMs serve a variety of functions, each contributing to a robust cybersecurity framework: Discovering shadow IT The SSPM discovery step detects unmonitored or unauthorized SaaS applications. Aside from informing the risk mitigation process, the discovery also lists underutilized licenses which contributes to cost optimization. Identifying misconfigurations or overprivileged access SSPM tools automate the detection of compromised credentials, suspicious login locations or times, and abnormal permissioning activities. Upon detection, it alerts stakeholders to investigate and remediate threats. Automating continuous security monitoring and response specific to SaaS environments Going beyond visibility, SSPMs can instantly trigger remediation actions based on policy violations. For example, automatically disabling compromised accounts or revoking an app integration with suspicious scope creep. Supporting compliance and audit processes SSPM tools y provide an audit trail for compliance requirements related to SaaS usage and security. When audits demand evidence of controls around access, configurations, and activity, SSPMs generate reports that demonstrate policies are enforced, which reduces the compliance burden. Techniques Employed by SSPM for Enhanced SaaS Security SSPM solutions utilize a comprehensive set of techniques: : Overseeing user accounts and streamlining identity and access controls. User management and IAM administration : Managing approved SaaS applications and identifying unauthorized usage. SaaS application catalog and shadow IT detection : Monitoring third-party app integrations and changes in SaaS configurations. Connected apps analysis and configuration drift detection : Using best practice templates and advanced threat detection capabilities. SaaS app configuration templates and threat detection : Ensuring data within SaaS applications is protected and licenses are managed efficiently. Data protection and license management Enhancing SSPM Effectiveness with Advanced Integrations SSPMs integrate with various technologies: : Provide real-time visibility into SaaS applications by extracting detailed configuration and permissioning data. API integrations : Align access controls and incorporate MFA status into user risk level assessments. Identity provider integration : Track SaaS app usage and login attempts, correlating data against access policies. Browser extensions and endpoint software : Offer templates aligned with compliance frameworks for automated monitoring and swift remediation of security lapses. Pre-configured security templates Navigating the Complexities of Implementing SSPM While beneficial, adopting an SSPM solution for enhanced SaaS security comes with its own set of challenges: Privacy Concerns The deep level of monitoring of user activities and application behaviors by SSPM tools can lead to privacy concerns. Establishing transparent policies and engaging in careful change management are essential to address these concerns and maintain trust. Budgetary Considerations Adding SSPM tools to the technology stack means an additional financial commitment. Justifying this investment requires quantifying the risk reduction and productivity enhancements SSPM achieves. Keeping Pace with Evolving Threats and Regulations The constantly evolving cyber threats and regulatory requirements demand that SSPM vendors rapidly evolve their products. Staying ahead of these changes is crucial for SSPM tools to remain effective and relevant. Balancing Security with User Experience Implementing security measures, such as enforced re-authentication, can sometimes disrupt user workflows. Finding the right balance between robust security and a seamless user experience is critical to ensure that security measures do not hinder productivity. The spectrum of benefits offered by SSPMs is vast, encompassing cost optimization, access governance, threat mitigation, and audit facilitation. However, unlocking the full potential of these tools requires careful selection, aligning them with the specific needs of an organization, and ensuring that the investment matches the scale of ambition. When implemented thoughtfully, SSPMs are not just tools but pivotal allies, scaling security assurance in step with an organization's cloud adoption journey, ensuring that growth and security go hand in hand.

How to Manage the Complexities of SaaS Security With SSPM

327 Stories To Learn About Saas

For many organizations, Slack is the software of choice for business communication. Slack’s ubiquity in modern companies makes it one of the first notification integrations a SaaS company might want to build, possibly after email and mobile push notifications. In our experience, Slack notifications are a great way to reach business users (as Slack is mostly used in a business context) with time-sensitive alerts or action items while they’re at work. Because the users are already in work mode, Slack notifications are suitable for anything from collaboration on documents and spreadsheets to workflows like approval requests or data access permissions. Slack is less suited for notifications outside of a work context or out of working hours. To be able to send messages in Slack, a software system must integrate with . The resulting integration will allow your application to send Slack messages with helpful information to a Slack channel or a direct message thread. Here’s an example of a Slack message coming from : Slack’s API GitHub’s Slack integration Here’s another example of a Slack integration from : Salesforce Many organizations don’t quite know what to expect when building an integration for sending messages from their SaaS product to a Slack channel or a direct message. In this post, we offer details for developers who are planning to build a Slack integration for their product. Technical aspects of a Slack integration From a technical perspective, Slack offers a fairly conventional HTTP REST API, which will be straightforward to understand for developers who deal with web systems. The functionality made available through the API is extensive, and there are complex parts to it, but most Slack integrations for SaaS will likely only need to send messages. Messages are the core of Slack’s functionality, but we cover other actions that your app might need to take in Slack below. For sending messages, the in the Slack API documentation is a helpful starting point. The steps required to send a message are: Sending Messages guide Create a Slack app. Request the correct permissions from the user. Compose the message using one of Slack’s message types (or ). blocks Send the message via an API call. The main way to send a message is the POST chat.postMessage endpoint, but it’s also possible to use other endpoints with slightly different functionality: the endpoint, for example, sends messages that are only visible temporarily and for a specific user (helpful for things like error messages). It’s also possible, and in some cases easier, to send messages using an . chat.postEphemeral incoming webhook Beyond sending messages, other functionality that you can implement with Slack’s API includes: Slash commands — simple chatbot functionality via commands in Slack DMs or channels Editing messages that have already been sent — for example, if the information has been updated Bots that respond to direct mentions and interactions — for example, is an implementation of such a bot used by hundreds of teams Hubot Bots that monitor all message traffic in a specific Slack channel or direct message thread (less common due to how inefficient it is to scan all messages in high-volume Slack channels) Many software teams choose to develop all functionality relating to Slack or another messaging service either in a dedicated microservice (if you use microservice architecture) or at least in a separate section of your monolithic app. The reason to do this is to avoid tightly coupling the way you think about notifications to Slack’s API — doing so could cause issues when the time comes to add support for other messaging APIs. Another reason to use a separate service or namespace for the Slack integration is to implement message retries and other reliability-focused tweaks. Such code would be too complex to include inside your business logic. In our experience, there are a few points that developers might not be thinking about when building a Slack integration, and we encourage you to consider them: Many of our users run into Slack API rate limits at some point during their usage cycle. So it’s likely that you will need to retry sending a message at some point because of rate limits. Consider including retry functionality from the very beginning. Messages sent by integrations might need to include images or other files, so consider how you’ll handle attachments. Slack offers convenient functionality via the API that you can use, and it comes with built-in access controls. But you might prefer to . In that case, authenticating requests to files can become painful because you won’t have Slack’s access control mechanism to rely on. file upload use your own storage Make sure that your system is compliant with relevant regulations, in case you’re sending notifications that include PII or other sensitive data. The user experience of a Slack integration: Our recommendations When we advise our customers about Slack integrations, most of our advice centers less on the implementation details and more on the product functionality and customer experience side. We see teams who are building Slack notification functionality for their SaaS focus too much on sending Slack messages and not enough on the value those notifications deliver to their users. In this section, we offer a few recommendations on designing a helpful Slack notification experience. Use Slack status information for optimal notification experience Something that we find useful for many customers is keeping track of Slack statuses (the little “active” and ”away” indicators you see on people’s profiles). Consider whether you even want to send Slack notifications if someone is marked as being away in Slack — they might not be on their computer, or they might have intentionally changed their status. Is the notification you’re sending in Slack going to be actionable for someone on their phone? For many SaaS applications, the answer is no. Our recommendation on handling status is to send Slack notifications when the user is active in Slack, and when they are not active, using a different channel like email or mobile push. Create message templates and have a workflow for updating them In a SaaS product, it’s very unlikely that you’ll need just one type of Slack message. An app can require tens or hundreds of different notifications to be sent via Slack — and managing such large numbers of messages in your codebase can get tricky. We recommend using templates instead of hard-coding messages in your application. It’s likely that your message templates will change over time, and you might want to add new notification types as you develop your product. By relying more on templates you can simplify the code review process — it’s easier for a peer to review a template change in a separate file than to jump between templates and code. Another recommendation is to make templates editable outside of the code review process. This capability will enable colleagues outside of the development team to change and tweak notification templates themselves without the need to commit directly to the codebase. Translation and language preferences Are you going to only offer notifications in one language, or multiple? If you’re offering multiple languages, how does a user configure their preferences? You might want to add functionality within the Slack app that allows users to configure their language settings, or have a section within your web app (outside of Slack) with notification preferences. In any case, you need to store language preferences for each user and, eventually, have a good way to store translated versions of notification text as well. We also recommend that you consider the translation workflow for notification text — the translators will likely not be able to navigate your codebase due to limited permissions or lack of technical context. Making it straightforward for the translators to work with your notification text will make it faster to implement new notification languages. Slack integrations are made easier with Courier In this article, we’ve covered our recommendations for building a successful Slack integration for your SaaS product. Prefer not to implement the integration yourself? With Courier, sending a Slack message only requires one API call to Courier’s endpoint. As part of that endpoint, Courier uses to customize notifications, from individual preferences and personal information to language settings. Courier also offers that can be created in a well-designed web user interface (with a translation workflow built-in) and to define more advanced notification logic. And, by the way, once you integrate Courier, you can send other message types — like Microsoft Teams, Discord, email, SMS, and more. send profile information templates automation If you’re interested in offloading building a strong Slack integration for your SaaS notification system, and see if buying might be a better option than building in this case! explore Courier Illustration by Rebekka Dunlap Also published . here

Building a Slack Integration for Your SaaS Notification System

Modern SaaS application providers handle sensitive user information every day, from customer names and email addresses to application code and third-party API secrets. It is thus more important than ever for web applications to adhere to the highest security standards, not only to maintain their business reputation and avoid financial losses but also to protect their users. Customer communications is one of the components of SaaS security that is often overlooked. In this article, we cover why you should look closely at how secure your customer communications are and implement strict security measures for emails, push notifications, and other communications you send to your users. We also offer some recommendations to get you started on this security journey. What does security in modern SaaS applications look like? Many modern SaaS applications are hosted on a cloud platform and accessed via web interfaces and APIs. They might also rely on third-party managed services, such as those offered via Amazon Web Services (AWS). Examples of such services are databases, computing resources, and the deployment of machine learning models. When designing security controls for an application, all these components need to be considered. In a traditional on-premises software deployment, the software vendor only develops the software but doesn’t take care of the hosting or information storage. The end user of the software (or rather, their IT department) is responsible for the security of their data when deploying the software they purchased. In the cloud, however, the SaaS provider is responsible. SaaS applications can become core pieces of the end user’s application stack, and as such process personally identifiable information (PII), like customer and employee records, application code, or third-party secrets and API keys. Specialized security measures for today’s SaaS services are thus absolutely critical in order to secure all that sensitive information. What types of security measures does an early-stage SaaS application running in the cloud require? Ideally, the application should be built with a security mindset from the beginning. If your application relies on cloud or other service providers, especially giants like AWS, they will have stringent security on their end. But you’ll need to ensure that every possible point of connection between your application and the cloud provider is protected. Accountability and data ownership with these providers should be clearly delineated. Check your cloud provider’s documentation for security best practices and follow them consistently. The measures you need to implement within your application and infrastructure include encryption, which scrambles data so that only those with the right key can decipher the information, and tokenization, where sensitive information is exchanged for tokens that are used instead. While tokenization or encryption can’t guarantee complete protection against a breach, they can prevent any actually usable information from being stolen in the event of a breach. All customer data should also be backed up securely. Data loss events can be as problematic for a business as security incidents, so the capacity to restore information from a backup in a modern SaaS application is crucial for successful service recovery. Continuous monitoring of the entire infrastructure is also necessary to respond quickly to any incidents or security breaches and prevent problems early. Why security especially matters for customer communication The customer communication infrastructure of SaaS providers must have access to PII like names, emails, and phone numbers to be able to send anything of value to its users and keep them engaged. Because personal information can be used very effectively by a malicious actor if they manage to obtain it, the user data needs to be protected. Any leaks of customer data, whether caused intentionally by malicious actors or unintentionally by the SaaS company itself, can be disastrous for all parties involved. Governments realize the risks the companies expose themselves by processing PII and have put guidelines in place for securing customer data. In the European Union, for example, the came into force in 2018. It outlines specific guidelines for managing user data securely and the penalties that will be imposed if an organization doesn’t comply. In California, the of 2018 was enacted in order to give California residents more control over how businesses collect and process customers' personal information. Its strict regulations are similar to those of the GDPR. In 2021, Virginia also followed suit with strict privacy laws by authorizing the to take effect in 2023. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA) SaaS providers have to pay more attention to data protection and security than ever before, not only to protect their business and their users' data but also to avoid massive penalties for breaches that might have been prevented. How common are communication-related security breaches? The number and scope of security breaches keeps growing year by year, and has greatly increased since the change to remote work. According to a by the Identity Theft Resource Center,  the number of data compromises in 2021 was 68% higher than in 2020 and “23 percent over the previous all-time high.” That’s staggering. An interesting point in their study is that the number of victims has actually decreased, allegedly as hackers focus more on trade secrets and specialized data. 2022 study In August of 2021, were exploited by hackers through security vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities had not been property patched in the months that Microsoft had known about them, and Microsoft’s own customers weren’t properly informed as to the severity of these vulnerabilities. Separately, in the last couple of years, have seen high numbers of spear phishing attacks to maliciously gain access to confidential information. Microsoft Exchange email servers Microsoft’s Office 365 services More recently, on March 18, 2022, , a CRM tool used by companies to manage marketing and sales, was hacked via an employee account. In the same month, news also dropped that , which provides cloud software to companies specifically for access management, had been hacked by a group as early as two months prior! Okta blamed the breach on a contracted company that provides customer support and was given access to Okta’s internal information. Hubspot Okta What’s the best way to address communication security concerns? Recommendations for the best security practices are constantly being developed at the same time as hackers are improving their methods and cloud applications are becoming more prominent, such as the Center for Internet Security’s . Stringent security practices for customer communications, like notifications, are especially important because they’re an easy point of entry for hackers that exploit unaware users. Controls v8 guidelines As a notification provider, we have put a lot of thought into security measures. Here, we share our top recommendations regarding best practices for general security controls. Internal reviews and processes Our first recommendation is to establish internal reviews and processes within the organization. This can be in the form of a security review checklist. Internal reviews should cover policies on password creation and multi-factor authentication, management of privileged access and general access controls, and new employee onboarding processes. More specifically, audit your employees’ access within the organization, limit that access to a need-to-know basis, and set up an approval workflow for any limited access to privileged accounts. Finally, ensure that your employees are using multi-factor authentication and creating strong passwords. The security review checklist should also include evaluating the scope of the infrastructure such as networks, devices, and any other connections to third-party providers. As you assess, create incident response plans for issues or breaches, and use them to detect any possible vulnerabilities in your infrastructure. Make sure to test these incident response plans periodically to ensure they stay up to date. These steps should be incorporated into your documentation as proof of process that they are actually being implemented. Having clear-cut documentation in place means that employees are more likely to follow through with your security protocol. As you are compiling documentation and specific review processes for the above items, aim to define your privacy policies for the public as well. Before there is ever a breach, it might be helpful for your users to educate them on the data you collect and process and what that means for them. Continuous monitoring Our second recommendation is to incorporate continuous monitoring of your infrastructure. Without monitoring, your response to a security breach can be too late. Monitoring not only enables your developer team to respond quickly if any issues or alerts arise, but might also offer insights into how you can improve your security controls overall. With SaaS applications combining several different providers or  components, it is especially integral to be able to visualize the general health of your application. User access and behavior and administrative access and behavior should be monitored as both might be indicative of a breach in a SaaS application. Currently, there are many security monitoring providers on the market. At Courier, for example, we use Datadog to observe our application’s components. Automation Third, software automation can help streamline your security processes. If you need to allow temporary access to privileged accounts or information, for efficiency. approval workflows can be automated Collaboration controls can also be automated so that employees don’t share confidential information inadvertently. If you’re looking to certify your organization to data management compliance standards, like SOC2, ISO 270001, or GDPR, you can also opt for automated monitoring by service providers such as or . Vanta Drata External audits Our fourth recommendation, if you want to heavily fortify your security controls, is to have a third-party service audit your infrastructure and processes for any vulnerabilities. You can either hire a consultant or use application vulnerability scanners. Examples include or . If you are looking to gain any compliance certifications, these security audits can offer a headstart by offering you proactive insights toward best practices. Probely Tenable Developing with security in mind As the number of data breaches increases and security attacks become more sophisticated, it is absolutely essential to integrate the most up-to-date security practices into both your application and your company organization. It’s no longer possible to skimp on security controls to focus on growing your business, especially as strict laws and regulations are enacted all over the world that would impose tough penalties and fines on non-compliance. As we have reviewed in this article, the risks of data breaches now include your company's reputation, financial losses, and further damages like identity theft for your users. Your customer communications can be one of the key sources of vulnerabilities for attackers to exploit. The way forward for any SaaS provider is to put security first. At Courier, we always strive to maintain the top standard when it comes to protecting sensitive data. To stay informed on upcoming content, subscribe below or follow us on Twitter at ! @trycourier Also published . here

Your SaaS User Communications: Don't Overlook the Security Issues

We often pay for air tickets more than necessary. And most of us know about that. However, we sometimes just have no time or patience to find better deals. That’s the reason why email subscribing services, sending their users notifications about advantageous flight deals, have recently become popular. They commonly work as freemium services offering free or paid subscription plans. Since this market is relatively young, we saw an opportunity to enter it with our product and launched our system in late December. Manyflights What is Manyflights? That’s a service where users specify their home airport and start receiving emails with available cheap flight deals to various destinations. The system tracks dozens of popular destinations simultaneously and sends notification emails to users once it finds prices lower than regular ones for specific flights. In our Premium plan, we have expanded the functionality with filters like date range, trip duration, and the possibility to select specific destinations for which our users want the system to find cheap flights. From a business point of view, Manyflights is a SaaS product built on the bootstrapped model, meaning it was developed without any third-party investments. Why we decided to build this product I flew from Europe to Latin America several times over the past year. I’ve realized that we often overpay for flights, especially when it comes to distant trips like transatlantic flights. They are traditionally expensive and make up a significant part of your travel budget. However, you can save a lot on them if you can wait for the lowest price. Manyflights is designed to help you seize the moment and free you from the necessity to track the cheapest flight fare rates manually. Once we find a good deal, you’ll get an email notification about it. I already had some expertise in this area. In 2017, we the Telegram bot to monitor air ticket rates. It has actually gained some popularity and currently boasts a user base of more than 80,000 subscribers. Nonetheless, that’s a niche product, and it is rather challenging to scale. So, this time, we decided to develop a service for a substantially larger audience. launched How we differentiated from our competitors Sure, we are far from being the first on the market, but we differ from our competitors primarily in filters allowing our users to get relevant flight deals: Specific destination search Date range options Trip duration options In our next product version, we are presenting regional searches (Europe, Asia, Latin America, etc). We’ve talked to our customers and found out that users from the United States, for instance, want to get more flight deals to Europe. On the other hand, considerably fewer users are interested in Latin America. Europeans, though, have quite diverse preferences: some want to travel to the most far-flung corners of the word while others are interested in European inland flights. The possibility to choose a destination region should satisfy all users as it excludes irrelevant flight deals from the mailing list. Tech stack To develop our product, we use PHP, Symphony, and MySQL. This stack allows us to build up functionality quickly and validate ideas. We get data via the official Skyscanner API, with which we’ve been working for quite some time on other projects. Skyscanner provides us with maximum market coverage and the best flight deal rates. We’ve chosen the SendGrid service to send emails to our customers. Because the service is rather simple to integrate, it allowed us to make a quick start. We use Paddle to accept payments. As of this moment, we are fully satisfied with the way everything works. How we validated the product MVP and Reddit helped us with that. The initial Manyflights version was as simple as possible — a landing page with a title, subtitle, and a single button “Get started.” Having clicked it, users specified their home airport and started to get cheap flight deals to their email addresses. Even at that point, we implemented a Premium plan purchase option. It was only available in one website usage scenario, and we didn’t expect any conversion. Moreover, the early functionality was rather rough. Nonetheless, we sold our first Premium plan as early as at a closed beta testing stage. That was surely a good sign and an incentive to keep on moving ahead. A more massive and critical audience joined us from Reddit, the place where you are a negative and hated character by default. That is actually a fine place to get criticized. You shouldn’t take it personally, though, as Reddit is the environment where you can see both polite, tolerant people and many trolls and haters. Reddit has specific rules. If you know them, you can get what you come for: users or feedback. For instance, r/Entrepreneur, r/Startups, or r/SideProject subreddits suit well for idea evaluation and feedback collection. That’s the very place where we received proofs of our product viability and insightful feedback. Based on this data, we built the next version of Manyflights and launched it publicly some time later. Launch and results To launch our service, we used several channels with plenty of technology people like startup supporters, indie makers, and entrepreneurs. Each platform is specific and needs a unique strategy to launch a product. It’s far from enough to be lucky for a successful launch. The correct sequence of actions is much more important. Below is a list of platforms where we gained our audience: Beta List Product Hunt Indie Hackers Reddit Travel Massive The launch process took us about a week through our successive appearances on each of the resources listed above. Our focus was on the Product Hunt campaign. It ensured the best results: most paid subscriptions came from this platform. Frankly speaking, I had hopes for selling just 1 paid subscription because Product Hunt traffic tends to convert worse than regular organic traffic. But the very first day, we sold 12 premium plans. Actually, every 30th US subscriber had registered as a paid user. However, you have to be skeptical about many positive reviews on platforms like Product Hunt or Indie Hackers. You have to keep in mind that this is the place where people with similar minds come together. They are the people who understand that you spend a lot of time and energy working on your startup. Most of them just want to support you as an indie developer, and if your product is blatantly lousy, no one will say it straight to your face. While launching our product on Reddit, we didn’t expect large user gains as we started there mainly on business and startup subreddits. However, we got several partnership offers and 2 offers to sell our product there. It happened just a week after the public launch took place. We never got to a negotiation phase on the real sale price, but I think no one would have offered a suitable amount of money at that point. Launch results: 2,000 subscribers 35 paid users 35,000 emails sent 2 offers to buy our product User relationship We started to build relationships with our users via our customer support at the very beginning. Even though our subscribers are scattered all over the world and in different time zones, we try to respond promptly to all user messages. Later on, after the launch, I interviewed our most active users and those with whom I had established contacts on how satisfied they were with our service. Then, we analyzed the feedback received and started building a plan to optimize our product. However, the best way to know your weak points is to talk to users unhappy about your product. Where would you find them? If you are building SaaS, someone will eventually ask you to unsubscribe or make a refund. And here it is — the appropriate moment! It is vital to take advantage of it and ask an unhappy user why they didn’t like the product. You can get much more from such users than from those who are satisfied with the service. We had two unsubscribe requests, and the users agreed to provide detailed feedback in both cases. It allowed us to comprehend our weak points. Eventually, we persuaded one of these users to change his mind and remain our subscriber. What we will do next We started late compared to our competitors, and we are now at the very end of the peloton. However, we have slightly different goals than struggles for the market at the moment. We are currently striving to gain a product-market fit achievement. That is why our priority for the next few months is to optimize our service and build a true product for users based on their feedback. In March, we plan to release the second iteration of our product with an advanced search algorithm and other functions to appeal to the mass user. We are still teaching our algorithm to tell good flight deals from secondary ones. For instance, if a direct flight fare is just a little higher than a transfer flight price, our system should select a direct flight. That is what most users would do.

How We Built This: Launching our Flight Alerts Service with No Financial Backing

SaaS is not a buzzword in 2019! It's a proven, efficient and most widely used model to deliver software to customers. SaaS stands for software as a service, which means the software is delivered as a continuous service over the web/internet where the customer doesn't have to download and install the product on his system. Examples of popular SaaS products include Zoho, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Twilio, etc. Having built and scaled a SaaS product to several hundred millions of users from scratch, I've gathered valuable knowledge and experienced in various aspects related to building and maintaining a SaaS software. I'll share some of the key elements to consider while building a software product that you plan to offer in the SaaS delivery model. If you're thinking to build your first SaaS product, this article will help you get some ideas. Test The Waters It may not be calm as you see. Look for sharks inside! Developing a SaaS product can be very costly unless you're an expert programmer and willing to spend all your time inside a room coding. SaaS development projects will have cost anywhere from to depending on the complexity and the stage you're in. So, before you invest your time and money in developing a full-fledged SaaS product, you should test if it's worth the effort by building a quick, low-cost MVP. $50,000 $1M As in every business, find your target customer segment. To whom are you going to sell this product? -This is not as easy as it seems. You might have several intuitions about your target customer which is likely to be wrong. You might be entering a market that is ruled by enterprise companies, or the market size of your product is too narrow that you can't make a sizeable income. And when it comes to finding your ideal customer persona, it should be laser-focused. You should be able to define a clear and crisp profile of your ideal customer! . During the initial stage of Engagespot, I assumed that our target customers are digital marketing agency owners and tried to sell the product to them. After spending a lot of time and effort, I realized that Engagespot is just a small module inside their already existing digital-marketing suit It will take you several iterations, and customer interactions to refine your customer profile! Once you find the right product-market fit, you'll feel like you are being chased by customers! Don't Re-invent the Wheel Wheels are already made and perfected by others. Don't re-invent them. Just use it! When you're building a SaaS product, several components are common for any SaaS apps that you need to build. But don't build them! Instead, look for companies that offer such modules as SaaS offerings. This will not only help you save months but also takes away the overhead in maintaining such modules. Hence your team can spend more time building and refining your core features, instead of coding some fancy invoicing templates! There are several third-party services that you can use to speed up your SaaS product development time. - Their platform takes away the pain in building the subscription module for your SaaS product, which includes monthly billing, invoicing, account management, pro-rata billing, multi-payment-gateway integrations etc. ChargeBee - This is my product, that helps you save time by quickly adding user notification support on your SaaS product. Every web-based product will have a notification center where users can see important notifications and alerts. Even though it looks simple, it needs a lot of effort to build that component. With Engagespot, you can add a complete notification system in less than 15 minutes. Engagespot - If your product has complex realtime search features that search millions of records, stop trying to optimize and make it as smooth as Google search. You're likely to fail! Instead, try Algolia. Algolia Build for scale Will your product withstand the growth if you get lucky overnight? You may not need to consider the word "scale" if you're building an MVP just to test the market. But after you've found the product-market fit and ready to onboard hundreds of real paying customers, it becomes critical. Sudden growth is something that I never expected while building my product and that's a mistake every new SaaS founders often make. For me, it happened when a website with comparatively huge traffic began to use my product and that sudden surge froze the product! I didn't foresee the potential bottlenecks while I was architecting my product as I never expected such a spike event. Later, I had to optimize the codebase and database to withstand such load spikes. If you are building your product v2.0, then you must architect it for scalability. You need to identify the areas where there is a chance for your SQL Queries to slow down or your in-memory array processing will crash the server. It's not as easy as it sounds. You need an experienced software architect who had worked on similar projects who can predict such scalability issues and design the architecture accordingly. You need an assembly line You need an efficient pipeline like this, to build and release new features to your SaaS product You've finished coding your product, tested it properly and made it available to your customers and they started using it. And you become a millionaire! - No, it's a dream and far away from reality. Your SaaS product will never be finished and it shouldn't be. Once your customers start using your product, you'll see bugs and issues that might have escaped your QA process. It's fine and it happens! But the real question is, how will you fix it and release it to your customers quickly without affecting the current system? This is where the importance of defining a delivery pipeline becomes critical. During the early stage of my SaaS product, I give little or no importance to software delivery at all and that was a recipe for failure. When bugs are encountered I fixed them and pushed directly to production and Boom! The entire system went down due to an unknown issue. Then I had to change revert the bug fix and identify what happened. This can seriously affect your business if you have several paying customers. Consider new feature releases just like a car in its production assembly line. It needs to go through several stages, automated and manual. And you need an efficient DevOps platform like Jenkins, Travis, , etc combined with a test automation tool like to handle the continuous release of new features to your product without affecting the existing system. Gitlab LambdaTest Change your mindset that software will run by it's own once deployed. Software development is a continuous process and it needs regular updates, maintenance and support to keep your customers happy. Measure from day 1 The way you think is not how your users think. This is a very important thing but often neglected by founders while building their product. What I've learned from building several SaaS products is that our intuitions are most likely to be wrong! We cannot trust our intuitions to build a new feature thinking that it might be loved by users. From day 1, you should use analytics software to measure and track your users and the way they use your product. If your customer base is low, you can even consider using a session recording tool like and watch how your users are behaving. Smartlook I used session recording to understand why most of my customers are not going beyond a particular step in the onboarding process and found a serious design issue that was making them confused and thus leading to abandoning the product. You'll never know how your customers use your product unless you track and measure using good analytics software. It can even give you ideas about which feature to build next. Building and scaling a SaaS product is an exciting journey with countless things you can learn from. But if you think you don't want to reinvent the wheel, it's better to learn from other SaaS founders and developers who have already walked the same path before you. What I've shared here is some of the basic things that you need to consider while building your first SaaS product which can help you a lot in your journey forward. All the best!

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