Introduction

The crippling recent attacks on Github, Okta, and Mailchimp demonstrate the severe risk posed by third-party apps integrations to your organization’s security posture. These recent attacks demonstrate the extent in which ungoverned app-to-app connections massively increase the likelihood of supply chain attacks, data breaches, and compliance violations. And the scenario is anything but hypothetical.

Imagine:

  • A marketing operations manager trialing a new SaaS prospecting tool – and integrating it directly with your Salesforce instance to automatically sync leads.
  • An engineering team lead using a new cloud-based productivity tool that relies on API access to your source code repositories.

In both cases (and many more), employees are freely adopting and integrating new technology – all in an effort to get their jobs done – without your knowledge. The result? Each of these connections extends your attack surface.

You might already be aware of the problem and looking for a way to close the security gap. If so, that’s a great start – but you should know that you’re probably only seeing a fraction of the challenge. In the era of product-led growth and bottom-up software adoption, it’s virtually impossible for security leaders to have visibility into all the integrations between cloud applications deployed in their environment – as the average enterprise uses 1,400 cloud services.

And even if you’re aware of the magnitude of the challenge and specifically tasked with handling this tangled web of app-to- app connectivity – it’s no easy task. Current security approaches fall short in helping security leaders take control of a sprawling web of third-party application integrations.

This eBook will give you the tools to close the connectivity security gap and significantly improve your overall security posture. Keep reading to understand the exact risks involved in app-to-app connectivity, best practices to minimize your attack surface, and how Astrix can help.

By any measure, the adoption of third-party applications has increased exponentially over recent years. (See “third-party adoption by the numbers” for more details.)

1,400

Average number of cloud services used by large enterprises (Source)

+18%

Annual growth rate of the market for SaaS applications (Source)

70%

Percentage of CIO’s who report adopting third-party applications for agility and scalability (Source)

Indeed, selecting and deploying third-party apps has become a cornerstone of many organization’s IT strategy – as a way of augmenting in-house capabilities, filling gaps, or accelerating business outcomes. Forrester identifies software platform and application vendors as one of four key sources of partnership value embraced by future-fit companies.

But what’s actually driving the breakneck adoption of third party applications? Five macro factors have shaped an environment in which enterprises’ reliance on third- party software and integration has become virtually essential to survival.

“Innovation through ecosystems happens when organizations actively collaborate with their cloud, software, business, and services providers — value aligned through common purpose and financial incentives.”

– Forrester

1. The evolution of SaaS ecosystems

What It Means

Monolithic applications have given way to a federation of micro-apps, increasingly organized into integration first SaaS ecosystems and marketplaces

Why It Matters

Enterprises will increasingly rely on webs of interconnected apps rather than a linear “stack”

2. The new digital workplace

What It Means

The shift to supporting remote and hybrid work has meant empowering workers to adopt the tools they need to get the job done

Why It Matters

In the workplace of the future, employees will increasingly expect the autonomy to adopt their own digital toolset

3. Product-led growth (PLG)

What It Means

The traditional enterprise sales process has given way to a new user journey fueled by product trial and bottom-up adoption

Why It Matters

The barriers to deployment and trial of new third-party applications has never been lower

4. The drive for hyper- automation

What It Means

In the quest for growth and productivity, enterprises are increasingly relying on third-party applications to fill gaps or augment their capabilities

Why It Matters

Any increasingly competitive global economy demands that enterprises identify and exploit any source of competitive advantage – often from third-party applications

5. Low-code and no-code integration platforms

What It Means

Data and apps are only valuable in the enterprise if they are connected to one another. A new generation of iPaaS platforms focused on citizen integrators (including vendors as disparate as Zapier and Mulesoft) has made it easier than ever to keep the organization connected.

Why It Matters

Third-party application usage will only increase as it becomes easier to link data and workflows from one to another

These trends aren’t going away any time soon. Indeed, many industry observers believe that these will be among the defining features of the 2022 cloud adoption landscape. Ultimately, the need for growth and productivity have furnished the “why” for third-party application integration – while massive evolutions in technology and ways of working have supplied the “how.”

While third-party applications integrated with core systems (like Google Workspace, Office 365, Salesforce, and GitHub) can help organizations achieve breakthrough growth and productivity, they also bring daunting new security challenges. These integrations effectively define a new cloud perimeter, one in which the interconnectivity between third-party applications and core systems has become the most vulnerable attack vector, threatening application posture, sensitive data, and compliance.

Case in point: 93% of companies report a cybersecurity breach in the past year related to weaknesses in their digital supply chain. What are some of the primary risks associated with third-party integrations?

Risk #1: Supply chain attacks

Risk #2: Direct malicious access

Risk #3: Compliance violations

The interconnectivity between apps and critical systems clearly opens up a vast, exploitable new attack surface. Security leaders looking to minimize the risks arising from the new app-to-app connectivity web must ensure that they have three critical capabilities.

Secure all your critical systems:

From business apps and engineering systems, to data warehouses and low code/no-code platforms, it is essential you continuously monitor all your critical systems across SaaS, PaaS and IaaS environments to ensure they securely communicate with third-party applications and with each other.

Secure all types of app-to-app integrations:

While critical systems like Salesforce and Office 365 are usually integrated with Marketplace third-party apps, engineering systems like GitHub and Big Query are often connected to third-party services through advanced integrations created by developers and DevOps engineers. It is essential you monitor all types of integration including:

  • Third-party service integrations
  • Indirect integrations enabled via no-code / low
    code automation platforms
  • Issued tokens, API keys, service accounts
Continuous threat detection & remediation:

It is essential you have the ability to quickly uncover and remediate integration risks threatening your application posture, sensitive data, and compliance as soon as they emerge. That includes:

  • Malicious third-party integrations such as impersonating applications, API account takeover, and OAuth attacks.
  • Anomalies and suspicious integration behavior (e.g. a suspicious source IP location)
  • Misconfigured / over-permissive integrations
  • Redundant apps, tokens, and keys (of past employees/ invalid applications)

See Graphic 1 for a breakdown of what is actually needed to close the app-to-app security gap.

Graphic 1: Critical capabilities for securing app-to-app integrations

Existing security solutions can’t keep up with the rapidly-growing challenges of third-party app interconnectivity. Legacy approaches often address user (rather than application) access, as this was previously the primary threat vector. They also tend to focus on the vulnerabilities of standalone applications – not the connectivity between the apps – and are built to address limited environments, like SaaS business applications alone. These solutions were also intended to match a slower pace of cloud adoption, such that all third- party services could undergo a thorough, lengthy manual review process.

Today, as app-to-app connectivity proliferates rapidly, these solutions simply fall short. See Graphic 2 to better understand why.

User Access Management

Authenticates user identity and provides tools to govern user
access to cloud-based apps and services. Enables security teams to easily provision the right access for the right user.

Limitations:

Only addresses user access – not app-to-app connectivity

Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)

Enables secure user access to SaaS application and secure user activity within the apps themselves by alerting on anomalous or suspicious behavior. Helps security teams compile a SaaS inventory, classify the risk associated with each, and enforce policy guidelines and compliance requirements.

Limitations:

  • Focus on user access policies to standalone applications – not on points of integration and connectivity between diverse cloud apps
  • Partially identify integration risks – without providing sufficient threat context for mitigation

Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM)

Tools and practices (e.g., questionnaires) designed to score third party providers based on the cybersecurity risk they pose to an organization. Enables security teams to easily provision the right access for the right user.

Limitations:

  • Assess the third-party integration security level only during the deployment, rather than continually monitoring its behavior afterward.
  • Manually-intensive and not well suited to bottom-up software adoption (e.g., PLG)

SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM)

Monitors cloud-based SaaS tools to ensure proper configuration and prevent compliance drift.

Limitations:

  • Only covers SaaS applications – not other sources of third-party integration (IaaS, Data services, iPaaS, etc)
  • Partial support in third-party integrations (focused on marketplace apps)
  • Lacking real-time behavior analysis indicating malicious or suspicious integrations

Graphic 2: Why current solutions don’t close the app-to-app security gap

Given the gaps in existing technology, what should third-party integration access management look like?

Whether you are partnering with a vendor or architecting your own approach in-house, there are four steps that security teams should follow to go from gatekeepers to growth partners.

Ultimately, security leaders need a technology solution that is built to manage the growing web of third-party integrations – providing control over the entire lifecycle of app-to-app connectivity. That’s where Astrix Security comes in. With an agentless, one click deployment, Astrix enables security teams to instantly see through the fog of connections, detect redundant, misconfigured and malicious third-party exposure to their critical systems – enabling their business to unleash the power of integrations and automation while seamlessly controlling their security and compliance.

Interested in learning more? feel free to

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