World News – CA – Switching to remote work poses SaaS security challenges

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many companies to accelerate the adoption of remote work technologies and many have turned to SaaS as a way to enable this

But it has put further pressure on security teams A new survey from SaaS security specialist AppOmni reveals that of more than 200 IT security specialists, 90% have recently been given additional responsibilities and two-thirds have less time to efficiently manage and secure SaaS applications

It shows that 93 percent of respondents received more responsibility due to COVID-19, while 66 percent of respondents saw less time spent on SaaS management and security due to the move working remotely In addition, 68% of respondents say they rely only on manual efforts to detect data exposures

« Due to COVID-19, IT teams are struggling to adapt to the massive changes in daily operations and the accelerated rate of cloud adoption associated with a remote and virtual workforce, » says Brendan O’Connor, CEO of AppOmni “This highlights the need for companies to work to better secure their current SaaS applications given that 90% of the respondents we polled noted that their use of SaaS applications has increased in adoption since the start of the pandemic »

Over half of respondents (52%) say their biggest challenge with existing cloud security solutions is their reactive nature.These solutions only alert security teams to an issue after an incident has already been detected rather than a proactive solution identifying data exposures before they manifest into an incident

« More and more companies today are investing in preventative solutions and gaining visibility on their cloud attack surface than ever before », adds O’Connor « Even after COVID-19, companies will need to offer remote work opportunities to stay competitive Now is the time to implement a hybrid work strategy that includes critical SaaS applications Businesses that wait until it is too late will find themselves behind the curve, which makes easy targets for attackers « 

Software as a Service, Cloud Computing, IT Security, Telecommuting, Information Technology