We recently launched a browser extension that extends our SaaS security and governance solution further across the workforce edge. The extension provides real-time security and usage insights alongside automated guardrails to help your workforce stay safe and compliant as they adopt SaaS and AI services.
A native feature of our platform, the extension enhances our SaaS discovery capabilities, which include email analysis and a growing library of connected apps. This multi-pronged approach stands in contrast to an emerging market of solutions that rely solely on browser-side capabilities for SaaS security and, increasingly, AI governance.
This raises the question: Is a browser-centric solution enough for SaaS security or AI governance?
In this post, we'll explore the advantages and limitations of browser-centric security solutions and why a more holistic approach delivers better protection.
Modern work takes place across SaaS and AI apps—making the browser the front door of the modern, perimeterless workplace. As such, the browser provides a unique and critical vantage point to uncover shadow SaaS and AI, understand usage trends, and monitor for identity and data risks.
Browser extensions can offer powerful real-time detection capabilities, enabling IT and security teams to answer important questions like:
Without this vantage point, these types of questions would be very difficult to discern, especially when relying on network traffic analysis.
In addition to capturing security insights, the browser is an ideal place to reach a highly distributed workforce. It allows IT and security teams to align with modern work practices and guide employees' real-time decision-making with just-in-time, contextual guardrails for AI and SaaS use. Examples of Nudge Security’s in-browser nudges include:
Despite the advantages described above, browser-centric security solutions have some blindspots and drawbacks to consider.
Here’s what browser extensions commonly miss:
Similar to network traffic monitoring solutions, browser extensions can only detect what they can directly observe in the browser—from the point of deployment onward. This misses critical historical SaaS and AI activity and access that could create risk. For example, while investigating a data breach of a well-known password manager app, a Nudge Security customer discovered a lingering account for an ex-CFO three years after he had departed.
The reach of browser extensions is limited to—well—wherever they're installed. This means that SaaS activities on mobile or unmanaged devices or browsers could go undetected, especially without robust device security controls in place to prevent the use of non-standard browsers. By contrast, email-based SaaS discovery methods can capture an employee’s app activities regardless of device or browser, providing a more complete picture of your SaaS landscape.
Browser extensions can monitor real-time activities, but lack full insight into the security posture of business-critical SaaS apps. They cannot replace comprehensive third-party vendor reviews or SaaS security posture management checks that evaluate data handling practices, access controls, compliance adherence, and security configurations. Without this deeper analysis gleaned through direct integration with each SaaS provider, your organization remains vulnerable to the types of risks that extend beyond user behavior.
Browser extensions often have limited ability to detect or monitor APIs or service accounts that access SaaS or AI apps programmatically. Many modern organizations use integration platforms, workflow automation tools, or custom code that authenticates to cloud services without browser interaction. This programmatic usage is nearly invisible to browser-based security solutions, creating potential blind spots for data exfiltration or unauthorized access.
While browser-based security can provide interactive, contextual guidance, it offers only one engagement point with your workforce. Want to ask an employee if they still need access to an app they haven't logged into within the past six months? You can't afford to wait for them to open that app in the browser (which might never happen if they've forgotten about the account).
Instead, a comprehensive SaaS security or AI governance strategy requires multiple channels—email, collaboration tools like Slack or Teams, and more—to engage with employees based on their work preferences and your needs. This multi-channel approach ensures critical security information reaches employees regardless of when, where and how they work.
Solutions that rely solely on browser-centric approaches miss critical visibility and control. Take AI security and governance as an example: a number of emerging AI security and governance startups use browser extensions to detect AI user activity—such as which tools are being accessed, what prompts are being used, and whether those prompts contain sensitive data—to help address immediate risk. Some can intervene in real time to notify users they're using an unapproved AI tool or that their prompt contains sensitive information. Others work to mask PII from AI chatbots (often by sharing that sensitive data instead with the security startup and its AI models 😬…).
Still, this doesn't fully address organizations’ needs surrounding AI data governance.
Browser-centric AI security and governance solutions miss the forest through the trees. As they zone in on employees copying and pasting data into AI chatbot prompts for select generative AI services, the GenAI market is setting sights on much larger data conquests.
The rapid emergence of model context protocol (MCP) services, embedded AI capabilities, and native AI integrations in SaaS apps creates the potential for AI models and agents to consume vast amounts of corporate SaaS data, simply with an OAuth grant between the AI service and the app that creates a firehose of data.
This large-scale, programmatic data access grounds AI models with real, relevant corporate data—a necessity for the longterm success of enterprise generative AI projects. This is already becoming the top data security and governance challenge for security leaders, and yet browser-based AI security startups often struggle to adequately discover, assess, and manage these app-to-app integrations, which can lead to the risk of sensitive data exposure at a much larger scale than individual prompts.
Just like you wouldn't rely only on a browser extension to handle your entire SaaS security, you shouldn't need one for AI data governance either.
Browser extensions can be a powerful tool in your SaaS security toolbelt, but they cannot stand alone. In today's complex digital landscape, a comprehensive approach to SaaS and AI security must include multiple vantage points and capabilities.
The reality is that your workforce accesses cloud services through various channels—mobile apps, desktop clients, email, and browsers across both managed and personal devices. They're also increasingly engaging with AI-powered tools that can programmatically access vast amounts of your organization's data. A security strategy that only monitors browser activity leaves significant blind spots that sophisticated attackers are all too ready to exploit.
Nudge Security's holistic approach combines email-based discovery, browser monitoring, and direct API integrations to give you complete visibility and control across your entire SaaS and AI ecosystem. This multi-layered strategy ensures you can:
As organizations continue to adopt more SaaS and AI tools, the stakes for comprehensive security have never been higher. Don't settle for partial visibility when complete protection is within reach.
Nudge Security’s browser extension is included at no extra cost for every customer and trial user because holistic SaaS security governance shouldn't have any blindspots. Nudge Security helps you build the strongest security strategy that scales everywhere work happens.
