5 Ways to Improve Your SaaS Company’s Security

From password management to secure coding to lining up with administrative guidelines, SaaS organizations miss what is significant toward the start, and are frequently compelled to address security only when it becomes too late. Interestingly, SaaS companies can make quick moves to start assembling a security plan. Furthermore, more mature companies can generally find ways to fortify and grow their strategies as well. Here are a few ways to start.

Start with a Security Meeting

Hold a security meeting to get everybody pointed in a similar way with regards to having a security-minded focus — not just senior leadership, but every department. Invite key team members, and create a plan:

• What systems need to be protected, and how much protection do they have already?
• What are the known security risks?
• Have you tested for unknown security risks?
• What kind of encryption do you use?
• What is your policy when it comes to employee passwords or two-step verification?
• Is there a response plan in case an incident occurs?

Before you think about outsourcing, start with your team and your resources to build your security plan. And do not just have one meeting — you need to meet regularly to discuss ongoing concerns or new issues as they arise.

Know Which Frameworks and Regulations You Need

Are you in compliance with the right frameworks and regulations? As you start setting up your security plan and begin thoroughly considering how to deal with client information and protection guidelines, you will need to ensure your compliance is up to date.

• SaaS companies frequently hope to line up with SOC 2 requirements, which assess how organizations handle and process client information.
• You may likewise have to consent to industry-explicit guidelines, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, or regional privacy laws.
• Also, find out what standards your clients are compliant with, because as their vendor you may have contractual obligations to be compliant with those requirements as well.

Review the Strategy Around Policies and Procedures

Does your company already have a set of policies and procedures to follow when it comes to security? Your policies should be actionable and should be unique to your company.

For instance, how should your developers be implementing security into the source code? How should different departments who work with customer data, like support, sales, or marketing be handling it? Who has access to customer data? If there is a data breach, who responds?

If there are no policies and procedures, make creating them a priority. You do not have to do this from scratch, find a tool that can automatically generate custom security policies for you. And if your policies exist only on one person’s computer or are passed around as oral institutional knowledge, get them thoroughly documented and accessible to everybody ASAP.

Do a Hardware and Software Asset Inventory

• You will not know what you need to secure if you do not know what are the resources you have, so take an inventory of your hardware and your software.
• Are there any outdated systems that need patching, or were just forgotten about? They can be easy targets for hackers looking for an open gateway inside.
• Furthermore, inventory who has access to your hardware, and what kind of controls you have around who gets access.
• Is your software updated? Do you have to uninstall any software that your organization does not utilize anymore? By laying out the perimeter of your property, so to speak, you will be better able to defend it.

Ask for Advice

Finally, no one needs to figure out information security in a vacuum, and your team will be facing a lot of unknown unknowns. Ask colleagues for advice or recommendations, seek out security experts to help, or investigate outsourcing security tasks to those who have the training. Ask questions and be honest with what you do not know.

Where to start when it comes to security for SaaS companies? Make sure your team has a security mindset and sees the value in keeping your company and your clients safe. If you do not yet have a security program in place, the important thing is to start. But security is never a fix-it-and-forget-it thing, it takes continuous vigilance and commitment.

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