SaaS Monitoring: Four Ways to Close the Credential Security Gap Today

Did you know that 84% of SaaS apps are prone to data leaks? With each unmonitored login, your business is one step closer to a costly security incident. 

Here's why: unapproved apps often lack proper security protocols, access controls, and encryption. Since these apps aren’t monitored, any weak or default credentials can expose your business data without your knowledge. 

While password management secures credentials at the entry point, SaaS monitoring gives you full visibility into where and how they’re being used. 

So, why does visibility matter? Without it, you can’t stop SaaS sprawl, spot risky behavior, or reduce your attack surface. 

Today, we reveal four (4) ways to achieve effective credential security, so you can protect your business, data, and reputation. 

#1 Map every SaaS app your team uses 

First, do you know how many SaaS apps your employees are using?  

In 2025, the typical SMB (small and medium-sized business) uses 58 apps on average. Yet, IT teams typically underestimate SaaS app use by 1.7X. 

This rapid growth in SaaS usage, which includes both shadow IT (unapproved apps) and generative AI apps, is driven by the need for convenience and productivity. 

But because IT only manages about 16% of an organization’s SaaS, this leads to blind spots that can pose risks for security and compliance. 

Action steps: 

• Centralize access with Single Sign-On (SSO) 

Implementing SSO lets your employees access all approved SSO-enabled apps with just a single set of credentials. If you use Active Directory (AD), ADFS lets you integrate AD with LastPass.  

This means your employees can access LastPass and its catalog of more than 1,200 SSO apps with just their AD login credentials. Monitoring SaaS applications becomes an easy task when every login is authenticated and logged centrally, giving you a unified view of SaaS usage across your organization. 

Don’t have Active Directory? You can still get access to unlimited apps, along with SaaS Monitoring, with a free Business Max trial.  

• Automate SaaS tracking with LastPass SaaS App Monitoring 

Our SaaS app monitoring tool works 24/7 to detect all business SaaS apps your employees are using – whether accessed through SSO or outside of it. This automated app discovery closes the gap on Shadow IT, so you can identify new apps and update your SaaS inventory in real time.  

• Implement a SaaS security audit and analyze usage metrics 

With both SSO and LastPass SaaS monitoring in place, you can audit which apps are being used, by whom, and how often.  

Our dashboard lets you see which apps are SSO-enabled, those that aren’t yet integrated, and any risky apps in use. This empowers you to enforce security policies, ensure compliance, and improve your organization’s security posture. 

Once you have a complete map of your SaaS inventory, you can: 

• Enable SSO for more apps to strengthen security  

• Eliminate redundant tools to save on SaaS spend  

Why it matters: You can’t protect what you don’t know exists. Visibility is the foundation of credential security. 

#2 Enforce strong, unique credentials for every SaaS app 

According to Verizon’s 2025 DBIR report, more than 60% of cyber-attacks involve the human element, with the majority due to weak or stolen credentials. 

And that’s not all: Password-only authentication configurations lead to more than 99% of identity compromises. 

While SSO and SaaS monitoring greatly reduces the risk of credential theft, enforcing strong password policies remains a critical security practice. Here’s why: 

• SSO centralizes authentication but doesn’t eliminate passwords: You and your employees will still need a single set of credentials (for example, your AD username and password) to access the LastPass SSO platform. So, the strength of each password used is crucial. If that one password is weak or compromised, it could provide access to connected SaaS apps. 

• Not every app is covered by SSO: Due to cost or technical considerations, not every app can be integrated into SSO. So, these apps will still require passwords. The good news is that LastPass SaaS Monitoring gives you visibility so you can take action to enforce strong password and MFA policies for apps without SSO protection. 

Action steps:  

• Require all employees to use a Secure by Design password manager like LastPass. If your team is still scribbling passwords on sticky notes or reusing “password123” everywhere, your company is an easy target for hackers. With LastPass, your team can use the built-in generator to automatically create unique passwords for each account. No idea what a strong password looks like in 2025? Check out the newest CISA and NIST password guidelines and then use our generator to customize your passwords accordingly. 

• SMS-based MFA is no longer enough in 2025. You’ll want to enable FIDO2 phishing resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA) for each app that can’t be integrated into SSO. 

Why it matters: With a 3X increase in malware-based credential theft, unique credentials and phishing-resistant MFA are your best bet against account takeovers. 

#3 Use role-based access control (RBAC) to limit exposure 

As mentioned, SSO centralizes identity management, providing one secure gateway for all SaaS app access. 

Meanwhile, SaaS monitoring lets you automate SaaS discovery and SaaS app tracking. This gives you complete visibility into every business app your employees are using.  

Both SSO and SaaS monitoring serve as an essential foundation for RBAC (role-based access control), a core component of IAM (identity and access management). 

Action steps:  

• Review user roles and permissions for all critical SaaS apps. 

• Apply the RBAC principle of least privilege, granting access to ONLY the resources needed for each role. By managing permissions at the role level, you can quickly adjust as employees change roles, leave, or join your company. This reduces lingering or excessive permissions, a common target for attackers. For example, when you connect Active Directory (AD) to LastPass, any access changes made in AD are automatically reflected in LastPass. So, if you disable access in AD, that change is synchronized in LastPass.  This automatic deprovisioning ensures former employees can’t access corporate resources, dramatically reducing your organization’s risk of data leaks. 

• With RBAC via LastPass, you can restrict access to sensitive data and provide clear audit trails of who has access to what. This is especially important in complying with the strict access control rules of the world’s major privacy regulations. 

Why it matters: By giving each employee only the permissions they need (and nothing more), you dramatically shrink your attack surface.  

So, even if an attacker compromises one account, least privilege cuts the risk of lateral movement, making it much harder for attackers to infiltrate your entire network. 

#4 Encrypt sensitive data at rest and in transit 

Have you heard of the infostealer epidemic? 

To date, infostealers have stolen at least 100 corporate credentials from workers at Australia’s biggest banks. And just three infostealer families (StealC, Lumma, and Redline) are responsible for 75% of 4.3 million machines infected worldwide. 

The biggest threat – Lumma infostealer – accounting for a 369% increase in detections in 2024, experienced a takedown by global law enforcement in May 2025. Since then, Acreed has become the leading infostealer strain, surpassing even StealC and Redline. 

As a result, the average corporate user now has 146 stolen records linked to their identity, an average 12x increase from past figures. 

As infostealers bypass traditional defenses to harvest credentials at scale, robust encryption is more important than ever. With LastPass, your data is secret (even from us). Here’s how we protect your business: 

• Zero knowledge security: Only you can unlock your encrypted vault. LastPass has NO access to your master password or login credentials. 

• AES-256 encryption at rest: Attackers are increasingly targeting stored credentials. But with military-grade AES-256 encryption, your data remains useless (undecipherable) to attackers and infostealers, even if they manage to gain access to your vault. 

• TLS encryption in transit: At LastPass, all production databases containing customer data are fully encrypted at rest and in transit, which means your information is never exposed. 

• Continuous security innovation: LastPass maintains a global privacy program, undergoes third-party security audits, holds major industry certifications (like ISO 27001, SOC2 Type II, SOC3, BSI C5, TRUSTe), and supports a bug bounty program to stay ahead of threats. Check out our transparent approach to security here. 

Action steps: 

• Review the security documentation of all SaaS vendors to confirm they use similar industry-standard encryption (such as AES-256 for data at rest and TLS for data in transit). You’ll also want to prioritize vendors who are transparent about their security practices, third-party audits, and compliance certifications. 

Why it matters: Strong vendor security practices (such as robust encryption) help your business meet compliance requirements and build trust with customers by demonstrating a commitment to data security. 

Ultimately, SaaS Monitoring combined with password management, data encryption, and strong access controls helps you achieve true credential security. 

At LastPass, we’ve made SaaS app discovery easy and affordable, so you can quickly spot risks before they become expensive problems. Best of all, LastPass SaaS Monitoring protects businesses of any size, whether you’re a lean start-up or growing enterprise.  

Our lasting commitment to your security is why we’re a 2025 G2 Leader and Business Titan award winner. To try SaaS monitoring without upfront investment, get your free Business Max trial today (no credit card required).