Grip Security vs Obsidian Security: Comparison 2024

This intelligence is based on feedback from multiple meetings conducted by Reco experts with industry experts, customers and prospects.

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Overview of Grip Security

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Grip Security is focused on securing access to SaaS applications across an organization. Its capabilities include automated app discovery, shadow IT monitoring, data loss prevention, and governance. Grip aims to provide complete visibility into SaaS usage, allowing CISOs to mitigate risks associated with SaaS application sprawl and unauthorized app usage. The platform is designed for quick deployment and offers integrations with existing security tools, facilitating a unified approach to SaaS security.

Overview of Obsidian Security

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Adaptive Shield is focused on helping enterprises secure their entire SaaS stack through posture management, and threat detection and response. It provides in-depth configuration checks across various SaaS applications, aligning them with industry best practices to avoid malware attacks that happen on using outdated agent versions. Users can see a full list of device vulnerabilities and understand the scope of each issue.  Adaptive Shield follows a holistic Zero Trust Approach, aiming to detect and mitigate threats in SaaS environments continuously. Adaptive Shield also provides a step-by-step remediation approach for these issues. Adaptive Shield typically caters to large enterprises with a customizable pricing model, making it a suitable choice for organizations with complex SaaS environments.

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Expert Insight: Expert Insight: The best approach for employees concerned about starting SSPM protection is to gather a list–even a partial one–of SaaS applications in use in their organization. From the entire mail infrastructure to the occasional use of marketing apps used to put the company logo on giveaway products, there are a lot of SaaS applications in use. Even a partial list should open eyes and raise the urgency at the enterprise level. Insight by GigaOm

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Grip Security and Obsidian Security Feature Comparison

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Grip Security Key Features

• Automated App Discovery: Provides real-time visibility into all SaaS applications used across the organization, including unauthorized or unapproved apps.
• Shadow IT Monitoring: Identifies risky or unauthorized SaaS usage and helps implement controls to mitigate exposure.
• Data Loss Prevention: Protects sensitive data by enforcing DLP policies across various SaaS applications.
• Governance and Compliance: Enables continuous monitoring and compliance reporting for key regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
• Automated Remediation: Offers automated workflows to address security incidents, such as disabling risky SaaS apps or alerting relevant teams.

Obsidian Security Key Features

• User Event Behavior Analytics (UEBA): Utilizes machine learning to monitor user activity and detect anomalous behavior that could indicate a security threat.
• Insider Threat Detection: Focuses on identifying and mitigating risks associated with insider threats.
• Advanced Threat Detection: Uses behavior-based detection to identify and respond to potential security incidents.
• User-Centric Governance: Protects critical SaaS applications by monitoring user interactions and access patterns.
• Incident Response: Provides tools to investigate and respond to security incidents within SaaS environments.

Implementation and User Experience of Grip Security and Obsidian Security

• Grip Security is known for its fast deployment and user-friendly interface. Its automated discovery tools provide immediate insights into SaaS usage, making it suitable for organizations with limited SaaS management resources. The platform offers customizable dashboards and reports, allowing CISOs to quickly understand security gaps and compliance risks.
• Obsidian Security: The platform is also API-based, and agentless. Ingesting data from SaaS applications, normalizing and deduplicating can take several business days. The platform's interface is geared toward monitoring and responding to user-centric threats, offering a streamlined experience for security teams focused on insider risk management.

Number of Integrations of Grip Security and Obsidian Security

• Grip Security: Supports numerous integrations, including popular SaaS applications, CASBs, SIEMs, and identity providers, allowing for streamlined incident response and data aggregation.
• Obsidian Security: Integration options are more limited, with a focus on key SaaS applications such as Salesforce, Microsoft, Workday, ServiceNow, Google, Okta, and Slack. Niche or industry-specific SaaS applications are not supported.

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Overview of Compliance Features of Grip Security

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Grip Security offers compliance monitoring and reporting for major regulatory frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA. Its compliance features include automated risk assessments, data protection policies, and audit trails to track data access across SaaS applications. Grip also supports continuous compliance monitoring, with alerts for policy violations and automated remediation capabilities.

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Overview of Compliance Features of Obsidian Security

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Obsidian Security offers compliance features focused on monitoring user behavior and access patterns to ensure that SaaS environments adhere to internal policies and external regulations. While not as comprehensive as AppOmni's compliance capabilities, Obsidian's tools provide valuable insights into potential compliance risks associated with user actions.

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Compliance Comparison of Grip Security and Obsidian Security

• Grip Security: provides robust compliance features designed to help organizations meet various regulatory and industry standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, and others. The platform focuses on ensuring that SaaS applications are used in a compliant manner, addressing data security and privacy requirements.
• Obsidian Security: Provides basic compliance features centered around user behavior and access monitoring. It is more focused on internal policy enforcement and insider risk management than on comprehensive regulatory compliance.

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SaaS to SaaS Discovery Capabilities of Grip Security and Obsidian Security

• Grip Security offers automated discovery of all SaaS applications, including unsanctioned apps, with minimal setup. Its approach covers both network and endpoint data sources, enabling complete visibility into SaaS usage. This feature helps organizations manage shadow IT and identify new app adoption trends.
• Obsidian Security: App discovery is more limited, with a focus on key applications that are monitored for user behavior. It provides less comprehensive coverage compared to AppOmni and cannot discover shadow IT.

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Shadow IT Capabilities of Grip Security and Obsidian Security

• Grip Security excels in identifying and controlling shadow IT, offering tools to detect unapproved SaaS applications and enforce usage policies. It provides insights into app usage trends and enables security teams to block or restrict access to risky apps.
• Obsidian Security: Does not offer Shadow IT capabilities. Primarily focused on monitoring user behavior within known applications. It is less effective in detecting and managing unauthorized SaaS usage.

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Reco’s Integration Capabilities

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Reco can discover and secure over 50,000 SaaS applications. It integrates with 100+ SaaS applications. Reco develops new application integrations using a low-code, no-code development and can add a new full-featured integration in 3-5 days.

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Reco’s Comprehensive App Discovery and Shadow IT Features

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Reco is a comprehensive SaaS security solution that supports the entire lifecycle of SaaS, from posture management to shadow IT and threat detection and response. It gives organizations full visibility into their SaaS ecosystem, monitors permissions and access across identities, and tracks misconfigurations and configuration drifts. 

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Reco uses advanced analytics around persona, actions, interactions and relationships to other users, and then uses this context to send prioritized alerts on potential exposure. This comprehensive picture is generated continuously using the Reco Identities Interaction Graph and empowers security teams to take swift action to effectively prioritize their most critical points of risk. Reco uses a low-code/no-code approach to add a new SaaS integration in 3-5 days. 

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App Discovery: 

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Until now, even answering how many SaaS applications were connected to an organization’s environment was almost impossible, let alone what they are. Reco’s AI-based graph technology connects in minutes and provides immediate visibility to security teams to continuously discover all SaaS applications, Shadow IT, GenAI tool usage, and data exposure risks. Reco is then able to identify, contextualize, prioritize and – most importantly – address potential risks.

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Shadow IT:

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Reco monitors email headers and uses this data to discover apps installed without IT approval/authorization. Reco is the only solution that combines this technology with posture management and threat detection within the SaaS ecosystem. 

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Reco’s Key Features and Benefits

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Reco is a full lifecycle SaaS security solution that brings a suite of innovative features that are redefining standards in the SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) category.

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Identity Management: 

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Reco introduces a contextual, graph-based approach to identity management. Unlike traditional SSPM solutions that treat identity in isolation, Reco's system integrates identities across all SaaS platforms, providing a unified view that provides context, enhances security oversight, and bolsters incident response. This graph-based approach offers deep insight into potential security risks associated with interconnected identities and permissions and fewer false positives thanks to this crucial context absent from other SSPM solutions.

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Reco Success Story: Reco detected insider risk of a leaving employee snooping and downloading excessive files from Salesforce. The customer was able to address this quickly.

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Advanced Analytics & ITDR:

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Reco’s contextual graph is the baseline for the real-time adaptive policy engine that allows end users to create and modify security policies that respond dynamically in real time to emerging threats. Reco integrates with existing security tools such as SOAR platforms and SIEMs, automating remediation processes. This reduces both the window of opportunity for attackers and configuration drifts as they happen. This continuous compliance helps organizations identify and remediate potential threats that might otherwise go unnoticed for months until performing official compliance audits.

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Reco Success Story: By reducing the number of unclear alerts by 50%, Reco was able to help a a customer’s security team save time, freeing them to focus on more important tasks. Reco’s AI-based solution provided the missing context needed to understand what actions were needed to take action quickly and accurately. 

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Multi-Tenant Management: 

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Reco is designed for both service providers and large enterprises. Reco supports complex multi-tenant environments, allowing organizations to manage multiple clients or business units from a single, centralized platform. Each tenant's data is isolated and secure. 

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Reco Success Story: Reco's contextual alerts, automated workflows, and policy management functionalities provided immediate value to customers. One customer shared that they have enhanced their ability to protect customer data, mitigate risks, and create a secure environment for both customers and employees.

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Permissions and Access: 

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Over-permissioned access, stale accounts, and external accounts pose immense risks to organizations’ data security. Reco continuously assesses users’ permission level using the principle of least privilege access, ensuring users and service accounts have no more access than necessary. In addition, Reco helps identify and revoke permissions that are unused or dormant, stale accounts, and risky user behavior that could lead to a breach. This constant monitoring across identities helps organizations ensure over-privileged users don’t become a 

liability. 

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Reco Success Story: A new member of the IT team automatically received Admin privileges in the SSO provider, and then was granted privileged access to Salesforce, Github, and NetSuite. The Reco platform alerted them of this situation so they could rightsize user access.

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Compliance and Configurations: 

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As misconfigurations are one of the highest risks organizations face, Reco can help teams stay in continuous compliance by monitoring for configuration changes or drifts. These metrics are fully customizable to help organizations recognize and resolve compliance issues before an audit. By tracking and gaining visibility into these potential risks, organizations are able to ensure they are following the correct industry best practices and frameworks. 

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Reco Success Story: Reco’s posture dashboard enabled one customer to clearly understand their posture gaps. The platform highlighted misconfigurations but also offered straightforward steps for resolution, saving them invaluable time.

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How Reco Enhances Efficiency and Compliance

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Reco has saved costs, time and lowered risk for organizations. Users saved 500+ hours/year when automating the user access review process, and 350+ hours/year no longer handling manual data aggregation and correlation for investigation. They saved $70,000/year on average when automating posture checks and mapping to compliance frameworks, and $50,000/year when removing stale accounts identified using Reco. Users lower risk by 90% from the visibility gained across core SaaS applications, third-party apps, and shadow IT, and lower risk by 70% when automating event monitoring in Salesforce and Microsoft 365. 

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Conclusion

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For CISOs evaluating SaaS security solutions, Grip Security and Obsidian Security offer distinct advantages depending on the organization's specific needs. Grip Security is better suited for organizations seeking SaaS app discovery and shadow IT management, providing unmatched visibility into all SaaS usage across an organization. It includes robust data protection features like data loss prevention and automated compliance monitoring to ensure regulatory adherence. The platform’s automated remediation capabilities enable quick response to security incidents, reducing overall risk and streamlining SaaS governance.

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Obsidian Security, on the other hand, is better suited for organizations prioritizing user behavior monitoring and insider threat protection. Reco is the most comprehensive SaaS security solution, and the only option offering posture management, shadow app discovery, and threat detection.

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The choice will depend on whether your focus is on if the solution offers a simplified approach to securing your SaaS ecosystem that’s focused on app discovery, or on proactively preventing data exposure by maintaining security posture of your SaaS applications, with a focus on core applications like Salesforce.