Unlocking Deeper Visibility and Control Over SaaS Risks

Identity has become the linchpin of modern enterprise security. While organizations have robust solutions and processes to manage known applications and identities, a significant gap remains: shadow SaaS and unmanaged identities. These areas, often overlooked, pose serious risks, making them a prime target for security breaches—often exploited through weak, shared, or compromised credentials. So, how can organizations mitigate these risks??

Grip Security rises to this challenge with its pioneering SaaS Identity Risk Management (SIRM) platform. Designed to secure the sprawling SaaS ecosystem, Grip leverages its industry-leading discovery capabilities, powered by the analysis of email communication from SaaS providers, to uncover shadow SaaS across the organization—those apps adopted outside IT’s oversight.?

Today, we are excited to introduce Grip Extend, an advanced suite of features powered by a browser extension, giving security teams greater visibility and control over risks that users introduce when they adopt SaaS applications.?

Overview of the Features?

Grip Extend is being rolled out in phases. Phase 1 is available now and focuses on revealing identity hygiene risks that users bring when using credential-based applications. Grip provides insights into reused, shared, and weak credentials, helping security teams understand the scope of risks. These insights empower them to act, like enforcing stronger passwords or enhancing organizational password policies.?

Reused Passwords?

Grip Extend identifies instances where users are reusing passwords across multiple applications. Reused credentials are a vulnerability; if one application's credentials are compromised, attackers can use them in credential stuffing attacks. By identifying where passwords are being reused, security teams can enforce stronger password policies and encourage the creation of unique, secure credentials.?

Shared Accounts?

Shared accounts pose another significant risk. These are login credentials for a single application that are shared among multiple users, leading to a lack of accountability and expanding the organization’s attack surface. Grip Extend provides detailed insights into shared accounts, including the application name, usernames, associated identities, and password strength metrics. Armed with this information, security teams can better manage access, enforce stronger password practices, or introduce more secure methods of account sharing to reduce risk.?

Weak Passwords?

Grip Extend reveals the use of weak passwords within the organization. Weak passwords fail to meet strength criteria, leaving applications exposed to attacks. Equipped with this data, security teams can prompt users to create stronger, more resilient passwords.?

Top Vulnerable Identities?

Grip Extend also pinpoints an organization's most vulnerable identities—users with many weak, reused, or even leaked passwords. These insights help security teams prioritize which users to address first, improving overall credential hygiene.?

Key Benefits of Grip Extend??

Grip Extend delivers essential benefits in its current release, with additional capabilities planned.??

Grip Extend is designed to help organizations:?

• Reduce Breach Risks: Enforce stronger passwords or MFA across discovered SaaS applications.?
• Enhance Security Policies: Make better, data-driven security decisions based on credential hygiene insights.?

• Control Shared Accounts: Mitigate the risks of shared accounts (e.g., social media accounts) to protect brand reputation.?

• Provide Comprehensive SaaS Insights: Identify all SaaS applications, whether managed or unmanaged, and transition them to a managed state, reducing security risks.?

• Eliminate Stale Accounts: Detect and offboard inactive or unmanaged accounts, saving costs and reducing potential vulnerabilities.? ?

Early Customer Successes?

Several Grip customers, including a major retail mortgage lender, a leading telecom company, and a national electrical contractor, have successfully deployed Grip Extend to thousands of users. These organizations are now gaining deeper visibility into their SaaS security risks, allowing them to proactively address vulnerabilities, reduce exposure, and meet key business objectives. With Grip Extend, they've transformed their security posture, ensuring more effective risk management across their SaaS ecosystem.?

Looking Ahead?

Grip has always led the way in helping organizations mitigate shadow SaaS risks. With Grip Extend, we’re advancing this mission by focusing on the risky credentials employees use to access both shadow and managed SaaS.?

But that's just the beginning! Soon, Grip Extend will discover even more elusive applications, like user portals, which don’t generate emails but still present significant risks. Future updates will offer deeper insights into shadow SaaS usage—such as frequency of use and authentication mechanisms—enabling teams to identify stale accounts and ensure robust security measures, like MFA (multi-factor authentication), are in place.?

Additionally, future versions of Grip Extend will enhance workflow efficiency by engaging directly with users through the browser. For example, users may be prompted to justify the use of new applications, helping foster better security practices and encouraging more thoughtful SaaS adoption across the organization.?

Getting Started?

Current Grip customers can start using Grip Extend by reaching out to their Customer Success Manager. Not a customer yet? Request a demo with our team to discover how Grip Extend can elevate your SaaS security strategy.?

This article was originally published on Grip.Security