Securing the Workforce Edge: A new paradigm for SaaS security

The way we work has fundamentally changed. As organizations embrace digital transformation, employees are increasingly making daily, independent decisions about the technology they use—creating what we call the "Workforce Edge." This democratization of technology adoption has left traditional security and governance approaches struggling to keep pace.

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Third-party risk management, data governance, and identity security programs are falling behind.

Despite significant, continued investment in identity and access, data governance, and third-party risk management, IT security and GRC programs are falling further behind, outpaced by business demands.

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Consider that:

• Third-party risk management programs are overwhelmed by the continuous need to assess and monitor new and existing vendors for vulnerabilities. This backlog has led to a troubling reality: 60% of apps used across organizations today are unsanctioned, meaning vendors remain unvetted and apps aren't securely configured before use.*
• From a data governance standpoint, a growing number of apps (40 on average) handle sensitive data—either directly or through integrations that connect fourth-party services to critical apps like Github and Salesforce.*
• Managing and protecting identities has become increasingly challenging across hundreds to thousands of SaaS accounts, with fewer than half of all identities under central management.*
• There are real financial and operational costs as well. Gartner estimates that 25% of all SaaS is underused and over-deployed, leading to hundreds of dollars in waste per employee annually.

*Source: Nudge Security product data

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Your employees make daily decisions that introduce SaaS sprawl and risk.

These investments routinely fail to address the real root problem, which begins with the simple fact that your employees use the internet for work.

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The modern internet is designed to not just enable, but rather entice your workforce to experiment with new SaaS and generative AI apps, upload corporate data, invite colleagues to collaborate, and hook them into other critical apps—ideally without getting bogged down by traditional approval and procurement processes.

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How bad is it? Our data shows that:

• Organizations typically have twice as many SaaS apps as employees.
• 90% of apps are adopted by teams and individuals outside of IT.
• Each employee has an average of 35 SaaS accounts.
• On average, each employee creates 70 OAuth grants, 11 considered high risk, and 26 integrating SaaS data across multiple services.
• In the past 2 years, GenAI tools have surged from 75 to 1000+ distinct apps.

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The reality is that your workforce is making independent micro-decisions every day about what apps (and vendors) are brought into your organization, how they are configured, and how data flows across them. This is the modern Workforce Edge: the sum of all of these decentralized human decisions made anytime, anywhere modern work happens.

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IT and security teams face unprecedented challenges in maintaining visibility of—let alone staying ahead of—all the decisions happening at the workforce edge. Threat actors know this and are actively exploiting these critical gaps in visibility and security controls, as observed in an increasingly number of recent, high-profile exploits targeting SaaS customers of Okta, Snowflake, Cloudflare, and others.

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Legacy approaches can’t see it—let alone solve it.

Legacy technology governance and security approaches become less effective as organizations' technology stacks and workforces become more decentralized and dynamic, creating ideal conditions for shadow SaaS to flourish.

• IT service request portals assume work can wait—often for weeks or months. However, employees typically start using new tools before submitting formal requests, leaving critical security measures, like vendor security assessments, incomplete.
• In-line network controls (CASB, SWG, SASE) oversimplify IT policy as binary: "good" technology is allowed while "bad" technology is blocked, requiring continual updates to allow lists and workarounds for business exceptions. Moreover, most workers simply bypass blocking controls to access apps they consider essential for their work. 🔸 69% of the employees admitted to bypassing security controls in a 2022 Gartner survey.‍
• API-based integrations (SSPM, SMP) augment network-based controls by authenticating directly with each SaaS environment. While useful, this approach requires existing app visibility, admin access, and significant deployment resources. It also fails to address a rapidly growing long tail of apps that lack robust API integrations.‍
• Identity and SSO providers centralize management and security of SaaS identities and access but fall short of addressing critical aspects of SaaS security like data governance and vendor security reviews. Additionally, SSO licensing costs and other barriers reduce their effectiveness.

Ultimately, legacy approaches have failed to adapt to the new reality of modern, democratized technology adoption and administration at the Workforce Edge.

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There’s a better way: Tap into the Workforce Edge.

What if—rather than clinging to outdated approaches bent on centrally controlling all tech decisions—organizations could instead meet their employees where they’re at? What if organizations could tap into the Workforce Edge to regain visibility, automatically guide employees toward better technology decisions, and address risk and sprawl with continuous monitoring?

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This is core to why we founded Nudge Security. Organizations that embrace what’s possible at the Workforce Edge stand to enable rapid business growth and innovation while reducing overhead and wasted spend. At the same time, they’ll be able to more effectively mitigate risks to strengthen their SaaS security posture, even as their technology estate expands and evolves.

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Moreover, a smart engagement model at the workforce edge could yield an additional benefit: strengthening an organization's collective cyber judgment through real-world prompts and just-in-time guardrails that move beyond simulated security training exercises.

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What it means to secure the Workforce Edge

When organizations secure the Workforce Edge, they aren't simply adding another pillar to their IT security strategy—instead, they're able to span multiple areas, evolving them to meet their business’s needs.

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Here’s what that looks like:

• Third-party risk management becomes proactive and automated, assessing vendors in real-time as employees discover and adopt new tools.
• Data governance shifts from rigid controls to intelligent guidance, helping employees make informed decisions about data sharing and protection.
• Identity security evolves beyond simple access management to continuous monitoring and automated risk remediation.
• Cost controls: advances from gathering spend, risk and utilization data from disparate systems into a unified view across the entire org to support better investment decisions.

Organizations that embrace guidance and guardrails at the Workforce Edge can accelerate innovation, reduce technology waste, and strengthen their overall security posture. Moreover, they create opportunities to build genuine security awareness through real-world interactions rather than artificial training exercises.

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How Nudge Security secures the Workforce Edge

We’ve been on a mission since our inception to help organizations secure the Workforce Edge. Through continuous discovery, intelligent risk prioritization, and automated guardrails, we transform IT and security from an innovation obstacle into a natural part of how work gets done.

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Nudge Security provides complete visibility while using behavioral science-based "nudges" to guide employees toward better security practices. The result? Faster innovation, reduced risk, and enhanced cyber judgment across your organization—all without adding IT overhead.

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See what’s possible with Nudge.