A new report today from software-as-a-service company DoControl Inc. has found that 40% of all SaaS data access is unmanaged, creating significant insider and external threats.

Described as a wakeup call to chief information officers and chief information security officers and the enterprises they protect, the report details the significant threat of unchecked and named data access by the SaaS provider and how it is often underestimated.

The findings came from a study of an average 1,000-person company with data stores of between 500,000 and 10 million assets in SaaS applications. Companies enabling public sharing may face up to 200,000 of these assets being shared publicly.

Insider threats are said to be a significant concern, with an average of 400 encryption keys shared internally to anyone with a link. A fifth of SaaS assets were found to be shared internally with a link, exposing many employees to data points they are not authorized to consume. Some 8% of employees share assets from their corporation with their personal accounts, exposing many former employees to ongoing company data.

With external threats, between 1,000 and 15,000 external collaborators, including vendors, contractors, customers, partners, prospects, media and analysts, were found to have access to company data. Between 200 and 3,000 external, specifically third-party, companies have access to the assets of the companies studied. And 18% of SaaS application assets were found to be shared externally and remain shared externally even after deleting users.

“The past year forced many organizations to collaborate with many external parties and adjust their existing workforce to support remote collaboration,” explained Adam Gavish, co-founder and chief executive officer of DoControl. “To date, security practitioners focused on enabling SaaS access in a secure manner, now is the time for them to prioritize the relevancy of this data access internally and externally.”

Noting that unmanageable data access poses a significant risk and increases the likelihood for a data breach, Gavish added that “while SaaS apps are designed to promote collaboration, in this ever-growing attack surface security teams must pay attention to ongoing data access at scale.”

Image: DoControl