# What is SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM)?

> SaaS security posture management (SSPM) is a non-standard market category for processes and tools that inventory supported software-as-a-service tenants and assess their security configuration over time.

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## Content

It may examine identity settings, privileged access, external sharing, data-protection policy, logging, third-party integrations, OAuth grants, and drift from an approved baseline.

An SSPM service commonly uses administrative APIs to normalize provider-specific settings, compare observed state with policy or a technical baseline, and send findings to owners. Some products can recommend or perform changes, but remediation should account for business workflows, provider behavior, and dependencies that a generic check cannot infer.

### Key points

- **Coverage and ownership:** Maintain an approved SaaS inventory, tenant owners, critical integrations, authoritative identities, data sensitivity, and the exact settings each connector supports.
- **Assessment quality:** Choose baselines for the organization’s risk, distinguish unavailable data from a passing check, monitor provider changes, document exceptions, and verify findings in the native administration plane.
- **Safe operation:** Grant connectors the least privileges practical, protect tokens and exported configuration, restrict analyst access, and approve changes affecting sign-in, sharing, retention, automation, or availability.
- **Important limitation:** SSPM has no consensus scope, and SaaS APIs expose only part of a service. A passing assessment does not establish that provider code, connected applications, identities, endpoints, data use, or contractual and regulatory obligations are secure.

### Related terms

[SaaS security](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/saas-security/>) · [Cloud access security broker (CASB)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cloud-access-security-broker/>) · [Cloud security posture management (CSPM)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cloud-security-posture-management/>) · [Identity and access management (IAM)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/identity-and-access-management/>) · [Data loss prevention (DLP)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/data-loss-prevention/>)

### Sources

[CMS Information Security and Privacy Program: SaaS Security Posture Management](https://security.cms.gov/learn/saas-security-posture-management-sspm) · [CISA TIC 3.0 Cloud Use Case](https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-05/tic_3.0_cloud_use_case_508c.pdf)

## Attribution and scope

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