3 Ways Your Business Can Enforce SaaS Data Protection

As beneficial as SaaS applications can be for your business, it is not a foolproof service.

So if your company is utilizing SaaS but has not implemented SaaS data protection, you are leaving your business wide open to different types of data hazards. Data loss can be detrimental to any organization and can come in many forms.

Here at LDI, we have worked with prospects and clients alike who are unaware of the threat of leaving their SaaS data unprotected. LDI recommends SaaS data protection solutions based on the state of your current IT environment and SaaS applications.

This article will define what SaaS is and who would be responsible for SaaS data security. We will then cover three ways to protect your SaaS data.

By the end of this article, you will better understand how to enforce SaaS data protection to protect your business’s information better.

What Is Software As A Service (SaaS)?

To understand SaaS data protection, let’s break down what SaaS is.

SaaS, or software-as-a-service, enables users to connect and use cloud-based applications over the internet.

Through SaaS, managed cloud providers, software vendors, and third-party outsourcing companies can host and maintain databases, servers, and code that help the application run smoothly.

Think of the different applications your business uses to run its operations.

Suppose your company is working with email applications such as Microsoft 365, a cloud-based storage application like Sharepoint, and a collaboration tool such as Salesforce. All of these applications are examples of SaaS.

SaaS is usually subscription-based and can be accessed anywhere at any time.

Who Is Responsible For Data Security In SaaS?

So if you’re considering working with a SaaS application, it’s important to consider who to reach out to for your data protection needs.

SaaS vendors are primarily responsible for the data protection of their platform, including the physical infrastructure and application security.

Just because your confidential data is stored within a SaaS platform does not mean the application or cloud services provider vendor owns your data.

Nor can the vendor or provider assume responsibility for how customers use the SaaS applications.

All in all, you, as the customer, are responsible for implementing security solutions to prevent security risks like data breaches.

What Are 3 Ways To Protect Your SaaS Data?

From accidental deletion to catastrophic ransomware attacks, your business must protect its data from a range of security threats.

Even though SaaS applications are intuitive, they cannot meet the retention and recovery requirements for today’s business security needs.

Data experts and cloud service providers recommend using third-party data protection solutions that can help protect your critical SaaS application data.

Let’s dive into three ways your business can implement SaaS data protection.

1. Simplify & Control Data Access

Protecting your data starts with understanding who has access to it and mitigating any risk of data loss from how your company currently has its access control set up.

Ensuring the way your business’s data is simplified and controlled is crucial. Why?

Well, identity and access management matters when your valuable data is at stake.

Ensuring that your data gets to the right people and is kept out of the wrong hands is essential when you have a business to run.

Try implementing a repeatable onboarding and offboarding process to monitor and restore your data post-offboarding. The last thing you want is a disgruntled employee having access to your company’s confidential information.

Your business can successfully leverage security mechanisms within your SaaS platform to enforce strong password policies and two-factor authentication. This will mitigate any risk of old personnel signing into an old account once they’ve left your company.

2. Implement A Scalable Backup Plan

When it comes to backing up your data, it’s not just about creating a plan that restores your data quickly and easily.

A backup plan should involve scalability, automation, multiple-layer security, as well as quick and easy point-in-time restores.

What does this mean? Well, whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise. You’ll need a scalable backup plan that can meet the needs of your ever-growing IT environment. 

More than likely, as time progresses, your business will purchase more computing devices to meet the needs of the employees you hire.

A scalable backup plan will include periodic backups, archiving disaster recovery, and business continuity.

Periodic Backups & Archiving

Think of backups and archiving as your first line of defense when enforcing SaaS data protection.

It isn’t the end-all-be-all solution for protecting your data, but it’s an essential first step to ensuring that you can access data from anywhere.

While backups involve copying your current data so that it can be restored if it’s damaged, an archive involves preserving historical data indefinitely for compliance reasons.

The frequency in which you backup your data depends on how essential an asset is and how often it changes.

You may be asking, “Where will you place these backups?” Good question! 

Cloud storage and on-premises storage are two options to where you can back up and archive your data. However, it is important to note that Cloud storage and on-premises storage reside in two different places. 

Cloud storage can reside in remote servers across town or even across the country. At the same time, on-premise storage utilizes in-house hardware and software owned and managed by your business versus a cloud service provider.

3. Have A Disaster Recovery Plan To Fall Back On

Now disaster recovery is imperative when faced with a catastrophic IT event.

The main goal of disaster recovery is to preserve all your data once the event has taken place.

A disaster recovery plan (DCP) is involved in carrying out a seamless plan once the disaster has happened. 

Your plan should include the minimum time your business requires to recover from a disaster. It should also have the amount of downtime acceptable before your operating system needs to be up and running again.

Remember to ensure that your IT team and key stakeholders are on the same page with you during this planning phase.

It’s important to have a game plan for when a hacker has infiltrated your network, or even a flood affects all of your technology.

Ready To Maintain Your Equipment?

For most businesses, data is their “crown jewels,” so to speak.

Therefore, relying on your SaaS vendor and expecting them to have all your backups handy isn’t realistic if and when your company loses data.

SaaS data protection provides your business with the autonomy it needs to rely on the systems you’ve put in place to recover essential data and processes. Through the combination of SaaS and SaaS data protection, your business can have the speed, service, and security it needs.

At LDI, our Cloud Services team understands how valuable data is to an organization. We recommend customized SaaS Data Protection solutions to fit the needs of the current applications you have and your current security posture.

To learn more about data protection, refer to our article comparing business continuity and disaster recovery.