Why is SaaS Penetration Testing Important For You?

Why is SaaS Penetration Testing Important For You?

Posted on Oct, 19, 2021 I Elise

Many businesses today utilize SaaS applications due to their changing perceptions of client requirements and optimizing their own services. What’s crucial during this development process is to provide adequate attention towards SaaS security requirements. Ensuring the best security is best done through SaaS penetration testing, especially with regulations for assessing the strength of the company’s network infrastructure.

SaaS penetration testing puts in place a well-defined framework for testing various components of the application as well as the identification of various security risks and vulnerabilities. This allows one to recognize existing security issues and predict potential exploitation of vulnerabilities and take steps for remediation.

Why should you conduct SaaS penetration testing?

It’s important to conduct SaaS penetration testing on a regular basis and ensure a couple of important aspects related to SaaS security. These include network, cloud and API security, identity management, server deployment, and regulatory compliance. Let’s look at some other reasons that make SaaS pentesting crucial for your company.

1. Ensuring application security

If your main product of firm software deals mainly with customer data, SaaS application security is a crucial aspect you cannot afford to overlook. The server deployment requirement for maintaining security in your local area has now transcended to cloud infrastructure due to its low cost and high demand. Therefore, Saas penetration testing procedures are important in ensuring SaaS applications are safe to meet your customers’ needs.

2. Requirement for specialized over-generalized software

A business software solution or security mandates could be mass-produced and still fit the job requirement. However, with the evolving needs of each firm in cybersecurity and unique threats, the need for specialized software also takes precedence. Firms can no longer rest on generic employees or basic software to maintain their competitive edge while staying safe from cyberattacks.

Today’s threats need employees with dedicated skills to handle them, specific tools, and an overall understanding of the business goals. This is where third-party penetration service providers or independent software providers need to prove their specialization in defending the organization against unique threats using tailored offence and defence methods.

3. The importance of manual testing

While automation has allowed the scaling up of complex applications, the role of APIs and the availability of quick coding has made the role of manual testing vital. While automated testing is a viable option for quick testing and detection of common vulnerabilities, these vulnerability scanners shouldn’t be the default choice.

Often, the context of coding and its intended purpose is lost on automated scanners and may result in ‘false positives. This is where manual testing brings in a team of security experts trained to navigate the system and go through the documentation to understand the purpose of certain aspects within the application. Manual testers should also be able to capture the hidden threats that may compromise the system as compared to mere scanners.

4. Protection of important assets

Companies that depend on SaaS applications as a core part of their business stand to benefit from regular pentesting procedures. This means that constant checks need to be conducted regarding new safety measures as well as the existing security barriers for their resilience against hackers.

All organizational processes of your SaaS applications should be complemented with adequate security controls for ensuring your client receives the best product. Since efficient SaaS security is still lacking in the industry, showing your firm’s dedication to the cause upfront to potential clients brings points to your favour. This makes penetration testing procedures a valid procedure to build customer trust by showcasing the proper protection of your assets and sensitive data.

5. Cover all aspects of the development process

Proper testing during the development process as well as by the end of the formation of the SaaS application is crucial to detecting and resolving vulnerabilities. For example, if your application follows the principles of DevOps, then traditional pentesting or testing once a year will not be able to cover all of the flaws.

Instead, you’ll need to conduct flexible penetration testing that regularly monitors the environment of the application, its operations, and the updates. All new features need to be tested with care as the smallest coding misconfigurations or improper access privileges can lead to unwanted cyberattacks.

It’s important to recognize that the concept of cybersecurity in SaaS companies can be very different from other companies as the parameters for testing and vulnerabilities are varied. For example, in SaaS companies, the protection of sensitive business and customer data is the most important aspect of cybersecurity. This is closely followed by the need for regular updates to complex SaaS applications, making SaaS security a holistic process that needs constant attention.

As countries also start setting up procedures for dealing with data breaches, SaaS companies have had to fit compliance requirements and SaaS penetration testing procedures. Therefore, it’s useful to remain informed about the procedure and move forward accordingly.