SaaS Alerts, a cybersecurity firm focused on safeguarding and optimizing MSP customer SaaS applications, has shared key insights from its latest SaaS Application Security Insights (SASI) Report.
This free, semi-annual report provides a unique analysis of approximately 136 million SaaS security events across 2,100 small and medium businesses (SMBs) worldwide, highlighting critical cyber trends impacting these enterprises.
SASI Report Findings
Covering security incidents from over 120,000 user accounts throughout 2021, the SASI report reveals significant threats to major SaaS platforms like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, and Dropbox, with a large number of cyberattacks traced back to Russia and China. This data helps service providers manage SaaS applications effectively by providing essential insights to adjust IT security strategies as needed.
Increasing Cyber Activities from Russia and China
Recent data indicates a notable rise in attacks from Russia and China, with suspicions of potential coordination efforts between these nations. Comparative trend analyses show a striking resemblance in attack patterns stemming from these countries, distinctly different from those originating in Germany.
Global Security Concerns
The relationship between Russia and China poses a challenge to U.S. national security
The relationship between Russia and China poses a challenge to U.S. national security, as noted by the Brookings Institute. While the U.S. strives to manage these adversarial ties, it must avoid policies that might inadvertently strengthen the Russia-China alliance.
Key Security Trends Identified
The SASI report documents an average of 10,000 brute force attacks daily, primarily originating from China, Russia, Vietnam, Korea, and Brazil. Successful unauthorized logins are most prevalent in these regions, raising alarms for businesses dependent on SaaS platforms.
Critical SaaS Alerts
- "User Location Outside Approved Location" alerts trigger when logins occur from unauthorized areas, suggesting potential unauthorized access.
- "SaaS Integration" alerts indicate risky connections to third-party applications, warning of potential data-sharing violations.
- "Multiple Account Lockouts" reveal brute force attempts when accounts face repeated lockouts within a 12-hour period.
Other Notable Findings
Guest user accounts pose a significant threat, with 42% of the monitored accounts being guest accounts. Additionally, risky file-sharing behaviors show that 19% of cloud-based file sharing involves external sources, increasing vulnerability to cyberattacks.
The Need for Robust SaaS Security
Jim Lippie, CEO of SaaS Alerts, emphasized the importance of comprehensive SaaS security and robust defenses to maintain business continuity and protect sensitive data. With SMBs being frequent targets, understanding these threat levels assists businesses and their MSPs in enhancing their security posture.
Security Management and Compliance
With SaaS security becoming increasingly vital, ensuring robust cyber defenses and compliance is crucial for SMBs using these applications. Cultivating a security-conscious workplace that prioritizes SaaS security controls and compliance can significantly reduce the risk of cyberattacks.
SaaS Alerts, the cybersecurity company purpose-built for MSPs to protect and monetize their customers’ business SaaS applications unveiled the findings of its latest edition of the SaaS Application Security Insights (SASI) Report.
Published semi-annually, the free downloadable report is the only one of its kind to analyze approximately 136 million SaaS security events across 2,100 small and medium businesses (SMBs) globally and identify cyber trends negatively impacting businesses.
SASI report
The statistically significant findings of the latest SASI report take into account security events occurring across more than 120,000 user accounts from January 1st to December 31st, 2021, and show that the vast majority of attacks on top SaaS platforms such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack and Dropbox are originating from the countries of Russia and China.
The data set is statistically significant and enables solution providers to manage a portfolio of SaaS applications with pertinent data and trends to support defensive IT security re-alignments as required.
Recent Activity
The vast volumes of data analyzed suggest these countries may even be coordinating attack efforts
Additionally, over the last several weeks, SaaS Alerts has seen a sharp rise in activity from countries with consistently high levels of both attempted and successful attacks originating within their borders — Russia and China.
The vast volumes of data analyzed suggest these countries may even be coordinating attack efforts. Per analysis available from SaaS Alerts, attack trend lines that compare Russia and China show almost the same pattern. Juxtaposed to a chart from Germany indicates that it is not even close to the same pattern, leading to educated speculation that these countries could be coordinating efforts.
A mixture of cooperation and competition
According to the Brookings Institute, “The U.S. National Security Strategy declares Russia and China the two top threats to U.S. national security. At the best of times, U.S.-Russia ties are a mixture of cooperation and competition, but today they are largely adversarial."
"Russia’s increasingly close relationship with China represents an ongoing challenge for the United States."
SaaS application security data
From January 1st to December 31st, 2021, SaaS Alerts monitored more than 136 million SaaS security events
"While there is little that Washington can do to draw Moscow away from Beijing, it should not pursue policies that drive the two countries closer together, such as the trade war with China and rafts of sanctions against Russia.”
During the period ranging from January 1st to December 31st, 2021, SaaS Alerts monitored more than 136 million SaaS security events, collecting and analyzing the anonymous SaaS application security data to identify a breakdown of cyberattacks on the most popular SaaS applications in use by SMBs today.
Key findings of the report
1) On average, SaaS Alerts is seeing approximately 10,000 Brute Force Attacks per day against the user accounts monitored by SaaS Alerts.
2) The origin of potential attacks can be traced back to specific countries with current data indicating that Attempted Unauthorized Logins are coming from actors located in China, Vietnam, Russia, Korea, and Brazil.
3) Successful Unauthorized Logins are originating in Russia, China, Vietnam, Korea, and Brazil. These are countries where an actor has successfully logged in using a valid user’s credentials.
4) The report finds that the Three Most Common Critical SaaS Application Security Alerts stem from:
- Alert: “User Location Outside Approved Location” is an alert that is triggered when there’s a successful login to a user account from outside of an approved location or an approved IP address range.
- Alert: “SaaS Integration” which indicates that account credentials have been used to connect to a third-party application which may lead to data and other account information sharing between SaaS Apps. Users often establish these connections for convenience without consideration of potential security violations.
- Alert: “Multiple Account Lockouts” which is recorded when an account is locked out 4 or more times within 12 hours. Often indicating that malicious actors are actively (typically programmatically) trying password combinations to gain access to the account and have succeeded in validating a correct account name.
5) Other key findings from the report focus on common threat vectors that are putting SMBs at risk including a shocking ratio of Guest User Accounts (versus Licensed Accounts) being leveraged by SMBs with 42% of the over 129,000 monitored SaaS accounts being Guest User Accounts, the report also identifies the top five Third-party OAuth App Integrations being leveraged by SMB users and details a threat vector around Risky File Sharing Behavior with 19% of cloud-based file sharing activity being to external sources versus internal file-sharing. Each of these activities poses a significant threat vector as they potentially open pathways for malicious attacks if not properly monitored and managed.
Uncertain cyber-climate
“In the uncertain cyber-climate we all reside in today, detailed SaaS security oversight and robust defenses are a requirement for ensuring high resiliency and business continuity,” said Jim Lippie, CEO, of SaaS Alerts.
“The loss, theft or corruption of mission-critical or sensitive customer data can be operationally and financially troublesome for SMBs that depend on continuous and unrestricted business operations to bolster revenues which have been the target of threat actors for years. We offer this useful threat level breakdown to assist businesses and the MSPs that support them with highly accurate insights about the security landscape they reside in.”
Security management and compliance
The security management and compliance of SaaS applications in use by SMBs have become a greater concern for MSPs as the deployment of cyber defenses takes center stage. Protection of both the SaaS application and data is critical and must receive SaaS-optimized security controls.
Building a security-minded employee culture that centers on security controls, SaaS-native cyber defenses, and procedural compliance can play a significant role in reducing the risk of a successful attack.
