Companies approach to data management has been changing at a significantly increasing rate of late. As the amount of globally harvested data continues to grow storage, management, security, and utilisation issues also continue to grow at a corresponding rate.
Industry analysts estimate that the Global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market will continue to grow at an annual rate of 20% reaching a market value of US$240billion by 2024. This is around one third of the total global enterprise software market. This growth, which will be at the expense of Commercial-off-the-shelf software (COTS) however will not be achieved without significant growing pains.
As the SaaS market continues to grow a major problem concerning security grows with it. The main issues relating to security involve Encryption and Key Management, Security/Threat Monitoring, and Incident Response. However, the problems that arise are more likely to be as a result of poor User/SaaS interfaces than underlying technical issues due to code security. When those involved in the ‘splicing’ of two or more softwares into a single functioning entity (usually the SaaS provider) are not fully versed in all aspects of the component parts then it is to be expected that anomalies will occur. Imperfect Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) also fall prey to this issue and are a common threat.
The matter of security is further compounded by more and more companies moving their tech into cloud-based facilities. Pre-Cloud, companies routinely relied upon traditional firewalling to protect their data whereas today security is becoming more reliant on Encryption and Key Management. The absorption of these activities by the SaaS provider and the CISO’s resultant loss of control and oversight conspires to rob CISO’s of the confidence to push forward and embrace new technology and new opportunities. This is particularly evident in fields related to Finance, Engineering, Health, and resource planning.
Any CISO will acknowledge that, given a specific set of circumstances, any defence can be breached. This risk is increased when control is relinquished, and perhaps never more so than when that party is driven by its own financial imperatives.
Chainlify’s Blockchain-as-a-Service will help overcome all of the above problems and restore CISO confidence by allowing control and oversight of an organisation’s applications to remain with the organisation and not the service provider. Chainlify is a facilitator, enabling companies to quickly build their Blockchain bases incorporating their own security protocols. Access to cloud-based hosts through the Chainlify BaaS platform means that total control and portability is in the hands of the user not the provider. We believe blockchain will help protect the integrity and security of data, meaning the risk of falling foul to a vulnerable API is reduced.
As the Business world starts to embrace SaaS its uptake will be stymied until SaaS providers deliver good and secure products and services. BaaS however will be at the forefront. Not only will our platform do what it says on the tin, the label on the tin will be written by the user.