Jan 12, 2025
Jan 12, 2025
Grip’s unmatched ability to detect and mitigate shadow SaaS risks extends the reach of TPRM programs, providing the visibility and control needed to defend against today’s complex threat landscape.
Third-party risk management (TPRM) platforms play a crucial role in evaluating the security and compliance posture of SaaS vendors. By assessing a vendor’s security controls and identifying potential vulnerabilities, these tools help you make confident decisions about which suppliers to trust. However, while TPRM platforms excel at evaluating SaaS vendors, they aren’t designed to address how vendor applications are being used within your organization, which introduces risk.
Moreover, TPRM solutions focus solely on the vendors you’re aware of, overlooking the SaaS applications acquired outside of IT’s oversight. Shadow SaaS tools bypass traditional procurement and security reviews, making their existence—and security risks—completely unknown.
Without visibility into these applications, organizations are exposed to risks they can’t mitigate. Shadow SaaS can also impede your best attempts at mitigating your third-party risks if an unauthorized app is granted OAuth permissions to a sanctioned app—hackers will find and use the shadow SaaS app to gain entry to your network.
While shadow SaaS introduces risks by bypassing traditional procurement and security reviews, even vetted and approved SaaS applications can present significant vulnerabilities once they’re in use. The challenge doesn’t stop at knowing who your vendors are—it extends to understanding how their SaaS products are being accessed and used within your organization. Even a trusted vendor’s application can become an unexpected weak link. Case in point: many software solutions are evaluated to ensure they have the appropriate access security controls, such as MFA, but it is the customer’s responsibility to enable it. If enabling SSO or MFA is overlooked, it can become a critical vulnerability, not because of the SaaS supplier’s controls but because of how SaaS is used and secured in the end-user's organization.
TPRM programs have the potential to do so much more, namely by understanding the risks of a supplier’s product once it’s in your environment and evaluating the shadow SaaS supplier that’s never been vetted. As SaaS adoption surges and shadow SaaS grows, this gap can quietly erode your organization’s risk management strategy, introducing vulnerabilities that traditional TPRM methods alone can’t detect.
Grip extends the value of third-party risk management programs by uncovering all SaaS applications within your organization, including the shadow SaaS initiated by employees that have not undergone any security reviews. By providing comprehensive visibility into what and how SaaS is being used, how it’s accessed, and the identity risks involved, Grip broadens the reach of TPRM programs. Grip offers a comprehensive understanding of your SaaS landscape while enabling further evaluation of shadow SaaS supplier security controls.
Grip empowers organizations to:
Identify shadow SaaS that bypasses procurement and risk management processes.
Understand how SaaS is used in your organization and user adoption patterns to help you determine how widespread an app is and its user dependencies.
Monitor SaaS-to-SaaS integrations, providing a comprehensive view of your downstream risks.
Assess identity security, including evaluating login methods, such as the use of SSO and MFA, to pinpoint and address identity-related vulnerabilities.
Mitigate your critical SaaS risks proactively based on actual usage patterns and security gaps.
Grip isn’t a replacement for your TPRM platform—it’s a powerful complement. By combining Grip’s SaaS insights with the vendor ratings provided by TPRM tools, you gain an amplified understanding of your risk exposure, from supplier practices to how an application is used in your organization and the impact it will have should a breach occur.
Cyberattacks are growing in number and sophistication, exploiting gaps in visibility and control across an organization’s ecosystems. With the rapid proliferation of SaaS applications—many adopted outside of security’s purview—these gaps are becoming more pronounced. Combining Grip with your TPRM platform amplifies your defense strategies by removing critical blind spots, uncovering shadow SaaS, and helping you mitigate identity-related risks that traditional third-party risk assessments don't address.
A few of the benefits customers have achieved by adding Grip’s insights to their TPRM program:
Amplified TPRM coverage by bringing critical shadow SaaS suppliers under management.
Deeper supplier insights by combining the supplier risk score information with how the SaaS tool will be used and integrated into their organization.
Smoother audits by ensuring SaaS suppliers comply with regulatory requirements and the apps accessing sensitive data are secured.
Grip’s unmatched ability to detect and mitigate shadow SaaS risks extends the reach of TPRM programs, providing the visibility and control needed to defend against today’s complex threat landscape.
Request a demo today and take the first step toward securing every SaaS application in your environment.
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Gain a complete view of your SaaS usage—including shadow SaaS and rogue cloud accounts—from an identity-centric viewpoint. See how Grip can improve the security of your enterprise.
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