SaaS Security Assessment: What to Check to Stay Secure

Imagine if your office building didn’t have a front desk: no visitor logs, no keycard access, and no visibility into who’s coming in or out. People could walk in, snoop around, maybe even walk out with sensitive documents - and no one would ever know. 

In today’s tech driven, post-pandemic, AI era world, the digital office is now the norm - and the doors are always wide open.

The post-COVID remote work boom accelerated SaaS adoption to unprecedented levels. There's a rise of new tech companies emerging every day - everybody in tech has entrepreneur fever - and more companies are running on G-Suite and Slack than ever before.

Because of this, every team has its own stack, every contractor uses a different application, and IT teams are left trying to secure a rapidly expanding web of tools, data, and users. Most organizations now use hundreds of SaaS apps, many of them unvetted, unmonitored, and deeply integrated with core business systems.

This article is your blueprint for regaining visibility and control. We’ll break down what a SaaS security assessment is, why it matters, what to look for, and how platforms like DoControl help organizations close the gaps before they become breaches.

What is a SaaS Security Assessment?

A SaaS security assessment is the first step in securing your SaaS environment. After all - how can you protect what you can’t see? Without a clear understanding of what apps are in use, how data is shared, and who has access to what, your organization is left vulnerable to risks hiding in plain sight.

At its core, a SaaS security assessment is about shining a light on the dark corners of your cloud environment. The assessment reveals security risks hidden in everyday workflows. It uncovers risky user behavior, excessive permissions, dormant accounts, and third-party app integrations that may have flown under the radar. These risks build up silently over time - whether it’s a well-intentioned employee oversharing files, or an OAuth-connected app quietly siphoning data.

Environments like Google Workspace make this even trickier. Designed for seamless collaboration, it’s incredibly easy for users to share files externally, install new apps, and open the door to third-party tools - all without security or IT oversight. What feels like productivity at the user level can easily translate to exposure at the organizational level.

Your cloud environment changes daily as apps are added, deleted, or audited. Every new SaaS application increases the attack surface. SaaS security assessments bring visibility and control back into the hands of security teams. They help identify historical exposures, understand current access patterns, and uncover blind spots before they turn into breaches.

Why Continuous SaaS Exposure Monitoring Is Important

Risk needs to be monitored 24/7. The post-COVID SaaS boom has changed everything. Remote work didn’t just shift where we work - it reshaped how we work. Your employees can access company data at any time of the day now - something that didn’t exist years ago.

Startups are launching at lightning speed, and nearly all of them are building their businesses on modern, easy-to-deploy platforms like Google Workspace and Slack. It’s fast and it’s flexible, but it’s also incredibly easy to lose control.

With every new app, integration, and user, your SaaS environment becomes more complex and more vulnerable. DoControl data found that an average of 710,000 company assets are publicly exposed. That’s not just a stat - it's your sensitive documents, intellectual property, playbooks, roadmaps, communications and more potentially floating in the wide open sea of the internet.

SaaS environments aren’t static - they evolve daily. That means your risk exposure is constantly changing too. Continuous assessments are the only way to keep up with:

• User behavior patterns and access controls 
• Over-permissioned accounts that grant far more permissions than necessary
• Agencies and contractors who need temporary access to sensitive resources
• Shadow apps and app sprawl that bypass IT teams and introduce unknown risks
• Misconfigurations that stem from default settings or rapid deployments
• A lack of user education around data sharing best practices and security hygiene

On top of that, compliance frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR all require organizations to maintain visibility and control over their data security. Without oversight into your SaaS environment, you’re at risk of non-compliance whether you realize it or not.

Platforms like Google Workspace evolve quickly. Files are shared, apps are installed, users come and go. If you’re not regularly assessing your SaaS security posture, you risk falling behind and exposing your organization to avoidable threats.

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What to Check During a SaaS Security Assessment

A comprehensive SaaS security assessment covers multiple areas, each one crucial to maintaining a strong security posture. Here’s what to check:

Access Controls

Start with who has access to what. Review internal teams, former employees, personal accounts, collaborators, and vendors. If third-party vendors that have stopped working with your organization are often a big blind spot. Many times, employees don’t revoke access even when these business partnerships have ended.

Over-permissioned users, especially those with administrative rights, also represent a high risk. An example of this would be an employee sharing a Google Doc that contains sensitive data with “Anyone with the link” permissions. Google Workspace’s flexible sharing makes it easy for access to sprawl, so it's important to tighten and remediate who has visibility into the files when possible.

Shadow App Permissions

Third-party applications that request OAuth access can gain deep visibility into email, files, and calendars. An example of this would be an app built in an unapproved region of the world quietly requesting read/write access to your entire Google Workspace environment: Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and more.

It gets approved with a single click from an unsuspecting employee. Now, that app can read confidential emails, download sensitive files, and even modify or delete content - without ever triggering an alert.

This isn’t hypothetical. Shadow apps like these operate outside your security team’s visibility, bypass traditional controls, and introduce serious risk to your organization.

Some application permissions bypass standard review processes. Assess which apps have been connected, what permissions they hold, and whether they align with actual business needs. 

Identity Risks 

Poor identity and access management can leave holes in your security fabric. Look for signs of unusual and anomalous behavior from employees and users who have access to your files. An example of these behaviors would be logging in from unfamiliar locations, unusual network access patterns, large, random file downloads of information, or dormant accounts with high privileges. These can be early signs of compromise or misuse.

This can also be a huge indicator of insider threats happening within your organization. For example, an employee is about to give their two weeks notice - but nobody knows it yet. That same employee downloads 100 files from the company's Google Workspace that contains internal strategies, playbooks, and sensitive information. Two weeks later, they leave the org, and take those files with them to a competitor. It's every business's worst nightmare, but it happens all the time. 

Compliance & Misconfigurations

A good security policy includes strong configuration management to ensure you meet your industry's specific security standards. Not all apps are created equal. Review each app’s security posture: is it SOC 2 compliant? How does it handle data? Does it adhere to industry standards? High-risk apps may seemingly offer convenience, but at what cost?

Missteps like weak domain sharing settings, generic passwords, lack of mulit-factor authentication (MFA) enforcement, or overly broad API permissions can create silent vulnerabilities. It's important to regularly audit configurations to ensure they align with your organization’s security policies.

By focusing on these areas within Google Workspace, information security teams can quickly uncover and address threats before they escalate into incidents.

Step-by-Step Guide to Running a SaaS Security Assessment (and Why You Shouldn’t Do It Alone)

Conducting a thorough SaaS security assessment, especially across complex service platforms like Google Workspace, can quickly become overwhelming. While it’s possible to do manually, most security teams don’t have the time, tooling, or context needed to do it effectively at scale. This is a big reason why assessments are not a regular part of a security teams’ broader security policy. We've broken it down into simple steps:

1. Inventory All SaaS Applications

Effective risk management starts with knowing what applications you have. Evaluate all the apps you have and the permissions granted to each app. Does it really need visibility into Gmail, Drive, or user profiles? Probably not. You’ll need to flag any apps with excessive or unjustified privileges that increase your risk surface.

2. Assess Risk Level and Data Access

Evaluate the permissions granted to each app. Is the app requesting access to Drive, Gmail, or user profiles? Consider the business justification versus the potential exposure. Flag apps with unnecessary or excessive privileges.

3. Review User and Group Access

Audit who has access to what - especially sensitive files and admin-level privileges. Pay attention to external collaborators, former employees, third-party contractors, inactive users, personal accounts, and accounts missing MFA. Audit third-party services and see if any unauthorized apps have access to your data.

4. Analyze File Sharing and Data Exposure

Scan for publicly shared documents, especially those containing regulated data or intellectual property. Then manually adjust sharing settings to lock things down. This step is tedious, but critical.

5. Check Security Configurations

Dive into Google Workspace admin settings to ensure things like MFA, file-sharing restrictions, and API access are properly enforced. Any misconfiguration could become an open door for attackers.

6. Document and Prioritize Risks

Finally, log everything: risks, severity levels, alerts, mitigation plans, and compliance gaps. Keep this living document updated over time to prove progress and ensure alignment across security, IT, and compliance.

Sounds like a lot? That’s because it is.

How DoControl Simplifies the Entire Process

At DoControl, we’ve built our platform specifically to handle everything above - and more - so you don’t have to. Our Free Risk Assessment (FRA) gives security teams complete visibility into their SaaS exposure in just five days. No guesswork. No manual effort.

Through our FRA, security teams and customers get a clear view of their SaaS exposure in just five days. We deliver detailed insights into:

• Asset Exposure
• Top Exposed External Users
• Top Exposed Private Accounts
• Top Exposed Domains

We uncover the critical risks to your SaaS environment, like:

• External Exposure: See which assets are shared with external users and organizations outside your domain.
• Public Exposure: Detect confidential or sensitive data that’s publicly accessible to anyone on the internet.
• Former Employee Access: Identify ex-employees who still have access to data through previously shared files or lingering permissions.
• Third-Party App Risk: Discover all third-party applications connected to your environment, and assess the risk level based on permissions and origin.
• High-Risk Employees: Pinpoint users most likely to expose corporate data based on behavior, permissions, and sharing patterns.
• Encryption Key Exposure: Flag any encryption keys that may be improperly shared or exposed within your SaaS environment.
• Sensitive Asset Inventory: Get a full breakdown of which files, folders, and data assets are at risk, who can view them, and from where.

At the end of the FRA, we provide a customized report highlighting top risk areas, suggested remediation steps, and opportunities for long-term risk reduction. Security teams can then test those improvements through DoControl’s solution and platform and determine whether a full deployment aligns with their security goals.

Best Practices for Ongoing SaaS Security

SaaS security isn’t a one-and-done process, it requires continuous attention. Here are best practices to maintain strong defenses:

1. Assess Regularly: Make SaaS security assessments continuous through an automated service platform monitoring risk and exposure 24/7. Conduct periodic penetration testing to uncover hidden vulnerabilities
2. Automate Where Possible: Use tools that can automatically scan your SaaS environment for insider threats, data exposure, shadow applications, and misconfigurations.
3. Set App Installation Policies: Define clear guidelines and use a tool to detect what types of third-party apps can be integrated and who can approve them. Limit integrations with unnecessary third-party services.
4. Educate Your Teams: Train employees to recognize risky behavior, secure their accounts, and avoid oversharing.
5. Enable Collaboration Across Teams: Align IT, security, legal, and compliance teams so SaaS policies are enforceable and understood across the organization.
6. Implement Zero Trust: Adopt least privilege principles and verify everything. Never assume internal users are inherently safe.
7. Enforce Security Controls: Implement granular security controls over file sharing and access.

Final Thoughts: Building a Safer SaaS Environment

Securing your SaaS environment is a lot like securing a modern office building: you need to know who’s coming in, what they have access to, and when they’re walking out with sensitive materials. Without that visibility, you’re relying on luck, not strategy.

SaaS platforms like Google Workspace and Slack have empowered businesses to move fast, collaborate globally, and scale like never before. But that convenience comes with complexity and inevitable risks. In this new era of remote teams, rapid startup growth, and nonstop app integrations, your SaaS environment evolves every day.

Solutions like DoControl, combined with sound processes and cross-functional awareness, give organizations the power to protect what matters most. SaaS security assessments aren’t just a checkbox - they’re the blueprint for securing the modern workplace.

Security management needs to evolve with the SaaS environment. When it comes to protecting your business, you can’t secure what you can’t see. With DoControl on their side, security teams can transform from reactive to resilient.

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