Go From Static to Dynamic SaaS Security, with Reco

SaaS has taken over the enterprise world. From the moment we wake up to check our email to the platforms we live in day-in and day-out to accomplish our job functions, the modern workforce operates almost entirely by way of SaaS applications. 

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SaaS is where work gets done and where our knowledge lives. So naturally, it’s critical for businesses to protect.

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Easier said than done — SaaS is one of the hardest things for a company to protect. Why? Because SaaS is constantly outscaling security due to five types of SaaS Sprawl.

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The Five Types of SaaS Sprawl

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Security is failing to keep up with SaaS applications for five reasons:

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App Sprawl

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SaaS adoption is happening faster than IT teams can track. In fact, the average enterprise uses nearly 500 SaaS apps – with over half of those being unaccounted for by IT or Security.

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But it’s not just about the number of apps. It's about the complex web of API connections, cross-app workflows, OAuth permissions, and data pipelines that form between them. App Sprawl gives way to Data Sprawl: data becomes scattered, duplicated, and difficult to track. This increases security, compliance, and operational risks.

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AI Sprawl

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Every major SaaS platform is now integrating AI capabilities. Slack's AI summarizes conversations. Salesforce Einstein analyzes customer data. Microsoft Copilot generates content across the 365 suite. Each AI integration creates new data flows, often to third-party LLM providers. Your data governance policies weren't designed for this level of AI-driven data sharing.

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Configuration Sprawl

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Each SaaS provider offers different security configurations. Okta's MFA settings don't match Azure AD's. Salesforce's sharing rules work nothing like Workday's. Google Workspace's admin controls are completely different from Microsoft 365's. There's no standardization across providers, and no one person is an expert on security for every SaaS app.

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Identity Sprawl

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Organizations are juggling thousands of identities across hundreds of SaaS apps, each with their own permission structures. Traditional IAM tools like Okta and Entra are a good start for identity security. By implementing Single Sign-On (SSO) and MFA through these tools, you can consolidate identities which reduces the attack surface. 

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But identity security in SaaS is more than just access. You need to account for the privileges, permissions, and actions of each identity. Plus, in SaaS, you’re dealing with more than just human identities. Service accounts, bot users, AI agents, and third-party integrations requiring OAuth tokens are all examples of SaaS identities that access your data. 

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Event Sprawl

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SaaS apps generate an enormous amount of event data through logging. Getting this data to the SIEM so that events can be monitored and investigated through the SOC is complex for three main reasons:

1. Integration issues: Some SaaS apps have no native integration to the SIEM and require custom, manual work to build the connections.
2. Upgrade requirements: Some SaaS apps demand costly upgrades to generate logs.
3. Lack of standardization: Each SaaS app has different ways of producing logs, making building the connections difficult.

As a result, it becomes nearly impossible to get visibility into every app. Most organizations are monitoring a few core apps, but what about secondary apps that share data with core apps? Without the full picture of events from every app, data breaches and insider threats get lost.

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The SaaS Security Gap

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For Security, mapping out the shoots and ladders of sensitive data flowing through SaaS apps and users is utterly impossible to do manually, making data exposure practically inevitable. The result? The SaaS Security Gap — the growing gap between what you can protect and what’s outscaling your security.

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So why don’t traditional solutions help close the SaaS Security Gap?

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Let’s take a look.

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What About CASB?

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CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) technology was created to address a specific security gap that emerged when organizations began adopting cloud services at scale.

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In the early days of cloud adoption (around 2010-2012), security teams faced a significant challenge: their traditional network-based security controls (firewalls, proxies, etc.) couldn't effectively secure data moving to cloud services that existed outside the corporate perimeter. This created a security blind spot.

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CASBs were developed specifically to:

1. Provide visibility into shadow IT and unauthorized cloud services
2. Enforce security policies consistently across multiple cloud services
3. Protect sensitive data moving to the cloud
4. Enable compliance with regulations for data in cloud environments
5. Monitor user activity in cloud services for potential threats

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The core value proposition was extending enterprise security policies beyond the network perimeter to cloud services, essentially creating a security control point between users and cloud applications during a time when organizations were rapidly losing direct control over their infrastructure.

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Where CASB Falls Short

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CASBs represented an architectural evolution in security - acknowledging that the traditional perimeter was dissolving and security needed to follow the data rather than just protect network boundaries.

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Still, our digital ecosystems are constantly evolving and we’ve come a long way since the days of CASB. It’s no longer just about data flowing from humans into apps, which CASBs were designed to manage. In today’s SaaS-driven world, data is sprawling through multiple channels including SaaS-to-SaaS integrations, AI agents, and risky permissions. Today, CASBs fall short for SaaS security for several reasons:

1. Limited visibility into app-to-app data flows and API connections
2. Struggle to detect and manage OAuth-authorized third-party applications
3. Poor visibility into SaaS configuration issues and security posture
4. Limited ability to identify shadow IT beyond web traffic
5. Insufficient identity context across the SaaS ecosystem
6. Ineffective at monitoring AI-powered SaaS tools that access data in new ways

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These shortcomings become increasingly problematic as organizations expand their SaaS footprints and as applications become more interconnected and AI-powered.

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→ Read Next: CASB Vs. SSPM - Key Differences and Use Cases

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Enter SSPM

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SSPM emerged to address several key gaps that CASBs couldn't effectively handle in modern SaaS environments:

1. Configuration Management Focus: SSPM continuously monitors security settings across all SaaS applications, identifying misconfigurations, compliance issues, and security drift that CASBs largely ignored.
2. API-Based Deployment: Unlike proxy-based CASBs, SSPM solutions use API-based integrations that provide deeper visibility without disrupting user experience or application performance.
3. SaaS-Specific Security Context: SSPM provides specialized security controls for each SaaS application, understanding their unique security models rather than applying generic policies.
4. Compliance Automation: SSPM maps SaaS configurations to specific compliance requirements, automating what was previously a manual and error-prone process.
5. Third-Party App Risk Assessment: SSPM analyzes OAuth tokens and third-party connections to identify risky integrations and excessive permissions.
6. Continuous Monitoring: Rather than point-in-time assessments, SSPM provides ongoing monitoring to detect security drift as SaaS applications update and change.

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SSPM effectively filled the configuration management and compliance gaps that CASBs left open, giving security teams much-needed visibility into their SaaS security posture and providing guided remediation capabilities to manage configuration drift.

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SSPM was a powerful step forward in addressing security for the modern enterprise. Still, SSPM alone has gaps.

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Why SSPM is Not Enough

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SSPM was designed for the early days of SaaS when organizations only had a handful of core apps. Today, organizations use hundreds, often thousands of SaaS apps. And new apps are being added every day. 

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Here are the reasons why SSPM alone is not enough for SaaS security:

• No Visibility in Shadow Apps: SSPM focuses solely on sanctioned SaaS applications that are formally integrated into your environment. They miss the shadow IT ecosystem - the numerous unauthorized applications employees connect to through OAuth tokens, browser extensions, or direct sign-ups. This creates significant blind spots in your security posture.
• SaaS-to-SaaS Blindspots: SaaS apps are not islands. They exchange data through OAuth tokens, API connections, and AI agents. Without an understanding of how your SaaS apps share data with one another you can’t possibly understand your data exposure risk.
• Limited Identity Context: Most SSPMs don't provide deep visibility into identity-related risks across your SaaS ecosystem, such as overprivileged accounts, dormant users, or risky third-party access.
• No Detection of Active Threats: By focusing primarily on configuration checks, SSPM tools miss behavioral anomalies that might indicate an active threat. SSPM generally can't detect malicious activities like data exfiltration, account takeovers, or insider threats as they happen in real time across your SaaS landscape.

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In short, legacy SSPM solutions are static. They offer visibility into the security posture of your known applications, but they don’t account for the apps that are constantly being added.

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Beyond Static Security

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The world of static SaaS environments is gone. Today's SaaS environment is dynamic, interconnected, and AI-powered; constantly connecting to new things and exchanging data through new pathways. It demands a new approach to security – one that can keep pace with the SaaS rate of change.

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Enter Dynamic SaaS Security, by Reco

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We're not just offering another SaaS security tool - we're introducing a fundamentally different approach to SaaS security. One that rejects the static nature of legacy solutions and embraces a world of constant change.

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Our solution includes four tools in one that are constantly adjusting to one another, giving you full SaaS context as things are added and updated. Gain visibility and observability into your full SaaS environment and eliminate the SaaS security gap for good. 

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Reco includes four solutions:

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Discovery: Every app, every connection, every AI agent in your environment – mapped and monitored in real-time, the moment it's connected to your environment.

SSPM+: Posture management that adapts to your business context, automatically adjusting as your SaaS ecosystem changes and grows.

Identity & Access Governance: Ensure that accounts are always secure (e.g., with MFA), and access privileges are kept to a minimum.

Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR): Get instant alerts on data theft, account compromise, and configuration drift with hundreds of pre-built detection controls. Respond automatically with your existing tools.

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The Technology That Makes It Possible

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Two innovations make dynamic SaaS security possible at Reco:

• The App Factory: a no-code/low-code engine that enables supporting new apps in days, not quarters. We currently support 155 apps, and that number is growing each week.
• Knowledge Graph: enriched by the App Factory, the Knowledge graph can process vast and increasing amounts of app data across the constantly expanding SaaS universe.

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→ Read Next: New App? Supported – with Reco’s App Factory

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Reco: Secure Your SaaS at Scale Today

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SaaS is good business. It drives innovation, speeds up workflows, and unlocks new possibilities. But SaaS has reached the breaking point of unacceptable security exposure.

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The solution isn't spreadsheets and chasing down SaaS users - it's to revolutionize how we approach security. Dynamic SaaS Security isn't just a new tool. It's security that moves at the speed of SaaS itself.

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Ready to close the SaaS Security Gap? Let's talk about how Dynamic SaaS Security can help you protect your SaaS at scale. Schedule a demo today.