As organizations increasingly depend on digital tools to drive productivity, managing and securing user access across various applications has become a critical priority. Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solutions play a central role in this effort, ensuring that individuals have the appropriate access to resources while maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements. However, despite the strengths of these tools, they often overlook a significant risk: the growing use of shadow SaaS applications, which can introduce security vulnerabilities and governance challenges.

The Rise of Shadow SaaS: A Growing Challenge for Identity Governance and Administration

Traditional IGA solutions excel in managing known, managed applications within an organization. They provide a comprehensive framework for identity governance with capabilities such as access certification, provisioning and deprovisioning, access requests, separation of duties, and more. However, the rapid growth and adoption of SaaS applications, many of which are adopted by employees without the knowledge or oversight of IT departments, has introduced a significant blind spot. This trend, known as shadow IT, poses a serious risk to enterprise security and a major challenge to SaaS governance.

Employees often use Shadow SaaS to enhance productivity, but the unmanaged nature of these tools means they bypass the traditional security controls enforced by IGA solutions. This lack of visibility and control increases the risk of data breaches and non-compliance and complicates the organization’s ability to enforce consistent identity governance policies.

The Limitations of Traditional IGA Tools

While IGA solutions are designed to provide a centralized approach to identity management, they typically lack the capability to detect and govern shadow SaaS applications. This limitation stems from the fact that these tools are typically scoped to manage only the applications that are known and integrated within their systems. As a result, many organizations are left with a significant gap in their security posture, unable to govern or secure the vast landscape of unmanaged SaaS applications in use across their enterprise.  

This gap becomes particularly concerning when considering that the average enterprise uses hundreds, if not thousands, of SaaS applications—many of which may not be sanctioned by the IT department. Without the ability to discover and govern these applications, organizations are exposed to many risks, including unauthorized access, data leaks, and compliance violations from improperly securing access to sensitive data.

Bridging the Gap: Enhancing Identity Governance with SaaS Identity Risk Management

To effectively manage the risks associated with shadow SaaS applications, enterprises must expand their approach beyond traditional IGA tools. Integrating a SaaS identity risk management tool allows organizations to enhance their identity governance capabilities. This blended approach ensures that, in addition to managed applications, the organization can also govern the wide range of shadow SaaS applications that exist outside the oversight of the IT department.  

As an example, integrating Grip with SailPoint significantly extends the platform’s capabilities, allowing security teams to discover and bring shadow SaaS applications under control, based on the identities using these applications. Further, by leveraging detailed information such as risk scores, usage patterns, and the application business owner, enterprises can optimize their IGA workflows, ensuring that access governance is applied consistently across all applications in the organization’s environment.

Let’s explore further how a blended approach can enhance an identity governance and administration program.

Uncovering and Extending Access Certifications to Shadow SaaS

Traditionally, access certifications have been limited to managed applications, leaving a significant gap in governance. By incorporating shadow SaaS into these processes, organizations can ensure that all user access is properly reviewed and certified, regardless of whether the application is officially managed by the IT department.

This expanded scope of access certifications not only improves security but also enables scalable management. Business owners of various SaaS applications can be engaged in the certification process, ensuring that access decisions are accurate and based on the most current information. Moreover, the availability of rich metadata—such as asset type, usage, and governance status—allows for more informed certification decisions, further enhancing the security posture of the organization.

Strengthening App Provisioning and Deprovisioning

Provisioning and deprovisioning ensure that users have the appropriate access to necessary applications when they join an organization and that their access is promptly revoked when they leave. By integrating Grip and SailPoint, organizations gain comprehensive oversight of both managed and unmanaged applications. For example, Grip’s RPA-powered password rotation capabilities allow security teams to revoke access to apps not directly connected to SailPoint or any other identity provisioning tool, ensuring that the deprovisioning process is thorough, efficient, and that no user retains unauthorized access to any application, managed or unmanaged.

Proactive Remediation and Continuous Monitoring

Because SaaS environments are constantly changing, enhanced visibility is essential to tracking and responding to new applications and changes, detecting drift and updating risk scores. The bottom line is, with Grip, SailPoint can remediate and revoke access to more apps.

The Benefits of a Holistic IGA Approach

An integrated approach combining identity governance and administration and SaaS identity risk management principles allows for the enhanced security of tens of thousands of SaaS applications, extending the value of your IGA tool and providing a stronger SaaS strategy.

Ultimately, this approach not only reduces risk by revoking access to shadow SaaS apps but also future-proofs identity management, ensuring that both current and future applications are protected.  

To learn more about Grip and how it extends SailPoint’s capabilities (or any other identity provisioning tool), we invite you to book time with our team. Additionally, Grip’s free shadow SaaS assessment will help you answer critical questions such as how many unmanaged apps exist in your SaaS environment, who is using them, and whether any former employees still have access to your SaaS. Book time now.

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