Integration Security for SaaS Applications: Best Practices Guide

PUBlished on
February 4, 2026
|
updated on
February 18, 2026

Aman A.

In April 2025, JPMorgan Chase CIO Patrick Opet published an open letter warning about SaaS integration risks. "The modern SaaS ecosystem creates inherent risks," he wrote, "as it allows for third-party providers to gain access to a business through a maze of SaaS-to-SaaS integrations." This wasn't theoretical concern. It was a response to watching supply chain attacks propagate through the invisible connections between applications.

Most organizations believe their biggest SaaS risk lives inside the applications they manage directly. In reality, the real exposure often sits one integration away. The average enterprise SaaS platform now connects to 42+ third-party applications through OAuth tokens, API keys, webhooks, and automation platforms. These integrations multiply faster than security teams can track them, creating blind spots where attackers operate with impunity.

This Best Practices Guide addresses the hidden attack surface between your SaaS applications-the OAuth tokens, service accounts, and API connections that function as digital bridges attackers walk across to bypass MFA, SSO, and traditional security controls.

Key Takeaways

What Is Integration Security for SaaS Applications?

Integration security protects the connections between SaaS applications-the OAuth tokens, API keys, webhooks, and iPaaS automations that enable data flow and workflow automation across your cloud ecosystem. This represents the "hidden layer" that doesn't appear in traditional security tools designed for on-premises infrastructure.

Unlike application security, which focuses on protecting individual SaaS platforms, integration security addresses the relationships between applications. It governs how Salesforce connects to Slack, how HubSpot integrates with Gmail, and how Workato orchestrates workflows across dozens of business systems.

The challenge: these connections often establish themselves through user-authorized OAuth flows that bypass IT approval processes entirely. A sales representative clicks "Connect with Google" on a productivity tool, and suddenly a third-party application holds persistent access to corporate email, calendar, and drive data. Security teams discover these integrations only after a vendor breach notification arrives-if they get one at all.

The Six Types of SaaS Integrations and Their Security Risks

Native Integrations

Native integrations are built-in connectors provided by SaaS vendors themselves-Salesforce's Slack integration, HubSpot's Gmail connector, or Microsoft's Teams integration with third-party apps. These connections are vendor-supported, maintained through official APIs, and typically documented in the application's integration marketplace.

The Risk: Even vendor-supported integrations use OAuth tokens that persist indefinitely after initial authorization. These bearer tokens function like keys-whoever holds them gets access, regardless of whether the original user's credentials have changed or MFA has been enforced. Organizations assume native integrations are inherently secure because they're official, but they still create persistent access paths that operate outside traditional authentication controls.

iPaaS Platforms

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) solutions like Workato, Tray.io, Zapier, and MuleSoft provide centralized automation management across multiple SaaS applications. These platforms orchestrate complex workflows, moving data between systems based on triggers and conditions defined by business users.

The Risk: A single compromise of an iPaaS platform exposes all connected workflows simultaneously. When an attacker gains access to a Zapier account, they inherit the OAuth tokens for every application that account connects-potentially dozens of business-critical systems. The blast radius extends far beyond the initial entry point, creating what security teams call "toxic combinations" where individually safe integrations become dangerous when chained together.

Custom API Integrations

Custom API integrations are developer-built connections using REST APIs, GraphQL endpoints, or webhooks. Development teams create these to address specific business requirements that pre-built connectors don't satisfy-custom data synchronization, specialized reporting, or proprietary workflow automation.

The Risk: Custom integrations are often built without security review and rarely audited after deployment. API keys get hardcoded into scripts, stored in version control repositories, or embedded in configuration files. Unlike OAuth tokens with defined scopes, API keys frequently grant broad administrative access because developers request maximum permissions to avoid future authorization issues. These integrations become "set and forget" connections that persist for years without governance.

OAuth-Based Third-Party Apps

OAuth-based third-party applications use the familiar "Connect with Google/Microsoft" authorization pattern. Users click a button, review (or more commonly, ignore) the requested permissions, and grant the application access to their SaaS data. This creates user-authorized, security-invisible connections that bypass IT approval workflows entirely.

The Risk: Shadow SaaS proliferates through OAuth authorization. Security teams discover productivity tools, browser extensions, and mobile applications that hold persistent access to corporate data only when conducting manual OAuth token audits-if they conduct them at all. According to research on SaaS security gaps, these unknown permissions create blind spots where attackers operate undetected. Former employees' OAuth authorizations persist after account deactivation because the tokens exist independently of the user's primary credentials.

Low-Code/No-Code Automations

Low-code and no-code platforms like Microsoft Power Platform, Google Apps Script, and Airtable Automations enable business users to build integrations without traditional development skills. Citizen developers create workflows, data transformations, and automated processes using visual interfaces and pre-built components.

The Risk: Citizen developer security gaps emerge when business users build integrations without understanding security implications. A marketing coordinator creates a Google Apps Script that exports Salesforce contact data to a personal spreadsheet for easier analysis. An operations manager builds a Power Automate flow that posts customer information to a public Slack channel. These integrations bypass security review because they're created outside IT visibility, yet they handle sensitive data with the same access privileges as officially sanctioned tools.

AI and LLM Integrations

AI and Large Language Model integrations represent the newest and fastest-growing category-ChatGPT plugins, Microsoft Copilot extensions, and custom GPT applications that connect to corporate SaaS data. These integrations enable AI models to read emails, analyze documents, and generate content based on business information.

The Risk: Data passed to AI models creates unclear boundaries around information handling. When a user authorizes a ChatGPT plugin to access Google Drive, what data gets transmitted to OpenAI's servers? How long is it retained? Is it used for model training? The rapid expansion of AI integrations outpaces security teams' ability to assess risks, creating exposure that organizations don't yet fully understand. Learn more about securing these emerging risks in our AI security best practices guide.

The Integration Security Risks Organizations Face

OAuth Tokens: Bearer Credentials with Persistent Access

OAuth tokens are the fundamental mechanism enabling SaaS-to-SaaS integrations, but they introduce security risks that most organizations underestimate. Most SaaS applications implement OAuth tokens as bearer tokens-credentials that function like physical keys. Whoever possesses the token gains access to the authorized resources, regardless of how they obtained it.

These tokens operate outside MFA after initial authorization. When a user completes the OAuth flow and authorizes an integration, the resulting access token and refresh token enable ongoing access without requiring the user to reauthenticate. The integration can read emails, modify documents, or export customer data without triggering MFA prompts that would alert security teams to unusual activity.

Refresh tokens pose especially significant risks because they can last months or years. While access tokens typically expire after minutes or hours, refresh tokens persist to enable seamless integration functionality. Attackers who steal refresh tokens gain long-term access that survives password changes and MFA enforcement on the primary account.

The Salesloft-Drift incident demonstrated this risk at scale. Attackers compromised OAuth tokens tied to the Salesloft-Drift integration, which provided access to multiple customers' Salesforce environments. From there, they systematically exported sensitive data from customer contacts to credentials like AWS keys and Snowflake tokens. More than 700 organizations were impacted because a single vendor compromise inherited trusted access across hundreds of customer environments.

Shadow Integrations: The Connections You Don't Know About

Shadow integrations emerge when users authorize applications without IT involvement. The OAuth authorization flow is deliberately frictionless-users click "Connect with Google," review a permissions dialog (often without reading it), and grant access in seconds. This ease of use drives productivity but creates security blind spots.

"Set and forget" access never receives review. A marketing team member authorizes a social media management tool to access company Twitter accounts. Six months later, the tool still holds access even though the team switched to a different platform. A year later, the employee leaves the company, but their OAuth authorization persists because it exists independently of their user account lifecycle.

According to research on third-party SaaS integration risk, organizations discover these shadow integrations only through manual OAuth token audits-and most organizations never conduct them. The connections accumulate over time, creating an expanding attack surface that security teams can't see, much less protect.

Third-Party App Vulnerabilities: Their Breach Is Your Breach

When your vendor gets compromised, attackers inherit the OAuth tokens your organization granted to that vendor. This isn't hypothetical-it's the attack pattern that defined the Salesloft-Drift and Gainsight incidents. The vendor's security failure becomes your data breach because the integration tokens provide direct access to your environment.

You often find out from breach notification letters, if you receive them at all. Breach disclosure requirements vary by jurisdiction and contract terms. Some vendors notify affected customers within days. Others take weeks or months. Some never disclose the incident publicly, leaving organizations to discover the compromise through their own detection systems-if they have them.

The operational reality: most organizations lack the visibility to determine which vendors hold OAuth tokens to their environment, what data those tokens can access, and whether those vendors have experienced security incidents. This creates inherited risk that traditional third-party risk management (TPRM) questionnaires don't capture.

Toxic Combinations: When Safe Integrations Aren't

Individual integrations often appear benign when evaluated in isolation. App A reads Salesforce contact data to generate marketing reports. App B writes files to external cloud storage for backup purposes. Neither integration presents obvious security concerns when assessed independently.

The danger emerges when these integrations combine to create unintended data exfiltration paths. App A reads sensitive customer information from Salesforce. App B writes that data to external storage that App C can access. App C belongs to a compromised vendor. The attacker now has a three-hop path from your Salesforce data to their infrastructure, and each individual integration appeared legitimate.

Security teams struggle to identify these toxic combinations because they require understanding the relationships between integrations, not just cataloging them. This is where behavioral detection becomes essential-monitoring not just what integrations exist, but how they interact and whether those interaction patterns change over time.

Supply Chain Amplification: Vendor Breaches Affect Hundreds

Supply chain attacks amplify through SaaS integrations faster than traditional attack vectors. When an attacker compromises a single vendor, they inherit OAuth tokens from every customer organization that authorized that vendor's integration. A single breach affects hundreds or thousands of organizations simultaneously.

The blast radius measures in hundreds of organizations rather than individual users. The Salesloft-Drift incident impacted more than 700 companies. Each affected organization then had to conduct incident response, audit data access, notify their customers, and potentially report regulatory breaches. The vendor's security failure cascaded into hundreds of parallel security incidents.

This represents 10x faster propagation than human-mediated attacks. Traditional attacks require adversaries to compromise each organization individually-phishing campaigns, credential stuffing, or exploiting application vulnerabilities. Supply chain attacks through SaaS integrations bypass that requirement entirely. The attacker compromises one vendor and immediately gains access to hundreds of customer environments through the trusted OAuth tokens those customers previously granted.

Integration Security Best Practices for SaaS Applications

1. Discover All Integrations Across Your SaaS Environment

You can't secure what you don't know exists. The foundation of integration security is comprehensive discovery-identifying every OAuth token, API key, webhook, and automation that connects your SaaS applications to external systems.

OAuth token inventory across all SaaS platforms requires querying each application's API to enumerate authorized integrations. This isn't a one-time assessment. According to Obsidian's network data, integrations increased 123% year-over-year as organizations adopted more automation and AI tools. Continuous discovery ensures your inventory remains current as users authorize new connections.

API key and webhook discovery extends beyond OAuth to identify other integration mechanisms. Developers create API keys for custom integrations. Business users configure webhooks to trigger external workflows. These connections often lack the governance that OAuth flows receive (minimal as that governance typically is) because they're created through administrative interfaces rather than user authorization flows.

Shadow SaaS identification reveals the applications users connected without IT approval. These tools often provide legitimate business value-productivity enhancers, collaboration platforms, analytics dashboards. The security concern isn't that they exist, but that they operate without visibility or governance. Discovery transforms shadow SaaS from unknown risk to managed integration.

Organizations implementing comprehensive integration discovery often find 3-5x more connections than they expected. What security teams estimated as "maybe 50 integrations" becomes 200+ OAuth tokens, API keys, and webhooks when systematically inventoried. This gap between perception and reality explains why integration security remains such a persistent blind spot.

2. Assess Third-Party Risk Before and After Authorization

Third-party risk assessment shouldn't occur only after a breach notification arrives. Evaluate security posture before authorizing integrations, then monitor for changes that increase risk over time.

Security evaluation before authorization examines the vendor's security practices, compliance certifications, and breach history. Does the vendor maintain SOC 2 Type II certification? Have they experienced publicized security incidents? What data protection guarantees do their contracts provide? These questions should receive answers before OAuth tokens get granted, not after.

SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications provide baseline assurance that vendors implement security controls, but they don't guarantee breach prevention. Certifications validate that controls exist and operate as documented-they don't assess whether those controls are sufficient for your risk tolerance or data sensitivity. Use certifications as minimum requirements, not comprehensive risk assessments.

Breach history review identifies vendors with track records of security failures. A vendor that experienced a breach two years ago and implemented significant security improvements may represent acceptable risk. A vendor with multiple breaches and no evidence of remediation does not. Public breach databases, security researcher disclosures, and vendor transparency reports provide this context.

Ongoing monitoring, not one-time assessment recognizes that vendor risk changes over time. A vendor with strong security posture when you authorized their integration may experience leadership changes, acquisition, or financial pressure that degrades their security investment. Continuous monitoring through vendor risk management platforms or security rating services alerts you to these changes before they manifest as breaches.

For a deeper understanding of managing these risks, explore our guide to Salesforce integration risk, which details how integration vulnerabilities create exposure even in well-secured platforms.

3. Apply Least Privilege to All Integration Permissions

Misconfigurations drive 50%+ of all SaaS security breaches, with overprivileged permissions representing a primary misconfiguration category. Least privilege-granting only the minimum permissions necessary for legitimate functionality-remains foundational to integration security, yet difficult to implement in practice.

Request minimum necessary scopes when authorizing OAuth integrations. If an application only needs to read calendar availability, don't grant full calendar access that includes event details, attendees, and attachments. If a tool requires reading contact information, don't grant write permissions that enable data modification or deletion.

The challenge: OAuth permission dialogs often present all-or-nothing choices. Applications request broad scopes because it simplifies their development and reduces future authorization requests. Users lack the technical context to evaluate whether requested permissions are truly necessary. Security teams don't see the authorization request until after the token is granted.

Review and reduce existing permissions addresses the accumulated overprivileged access from past authorizations. According to research, 85% of SaaS environments contain over-privileged identities that exceed necessary access levels. Conducting quarterly OAuth token audits identifies integrations granted excessive permissions when they were authorized months or years ago. Many can be downscoped without affecting functionality.

Admin access should require justification because administrative permissions enable the most dangerous actions-user management, security configuration changes, data deletion, and exfiltration of entire datasets. Integrations requesting admin scopes should trigger enhanced review processes, time-limited authorizations, and continuous monitoring for unusual behavior.

4. Implement Governance for Integration Lifecycle Management

Integration security requires governance that matches the speed and scale of SaaS adoption. Manual approval workflows and quarterly reviews can't keep pace with users authorizing new integrations daily. Automation and policy enforcement become essential.

Approval workflow for new integrations establishes a gate before OAuth tokens get granted. When a user attempts to authorize a new integration, the request routes to security or IT for evaluation. This doesn't mean blocking all integrations-it means ensuring someone with security context reviews the request before access is granted.

Implementation varies by organization size and risk tolerance. Some organizations require approval for all third-party integrations. Others auto-approve integrations from pre-vetted vendors and flag unknown applications for review. The key is visibility into authorization requests before they complete, not discovery after the fact.

Regular access reviews (quarterly minimum) identify integrations that no longer serve business purposes. The marketing automation tool the team used last year but replaced with a different platform. The analytics dashboard that generated reports nobody reads anymore. The browser extension an employee installed for a one-time project six months ago. These stale integrations accumulate over time, each representing persistent access that attackers can exploit.

Offboarding process when integrations are no longer needed ensures OAuth tokens get revoked, API keys get deleted, and webhooks get disabled. This should be automated where possible-when a SaaS subscription ends, automatically revoke all OAuth tokens associated with that vendor. When an employee leaves, audit and revoke the integrations they authorized. Manual processes fail at scale.

Organizations implementing integration governance often discover that 30-40% of their OAuth tokens connect to applications no longer actively used. These zombie integrations represent pure risk with zero business value-the easiest security wins to achieve.

5. Monitor for Behavioral Anomalies in Integration Activity

Inventory tells you what integrations exist. Behavioral monitoring tells you whether they're being abused. This distinction separates organizations that discover breaches from vendor notifications and those that detect compromises through their own security operations.

Token usage patterns establish baselines for normal integration behavior. An integration that typically makes 50 API calls per day suddenly making 5,000 calls represents a significant deviation. An OAuth token that historically accessed 10-20 records per session now downloading entire datasets triggers alerts. These pattern changes often indicate compromise before data exfiltration becomes obvious.

Data access volumes provide another behavioral signal. Integrations typically access consistent data volumes aligned with their business purpose. A reporting tool that reads 1,000 Salesforce records daily for dashboard generation suddenly accessing 100,000 records suggests either legitimate business change or malicious activity. Context determines which, but the anomaly deserves investigation.

New connection attempts from previously inactive integrations warrant scrutiny. An OAuth token that hasn't been used in six months suddenly authenticating from a new IP address and accessing sensitive data represents a high-confidence indicator of compromise. Dormant integrations getting reactivated often signal that attackers discovered stored tokens and are testing their validity.

Geographic and network anomalies reveal when integrations operate from unexpected locations. An integration that always connects from AWS us-east-1 suddenly authenticating from a residential ISP in Eastern Europe indicates token theft. User-Agent attribution mismatches-where the client identifier doesn't match historical patterns-provide additional signals of compromised credentials.

The Salesloft-Drift incident demonstrates why behavioral monitoring matters. Organizations knew they had Salesforce integrations. They didn't detect when those integrations started behaving abnormally-accessing data outside typical patterns, downloading larger volumes than historical baselines, or operating from unusual network locations. Behavioral detection would have identified anomalous token usage quickly, potentially containing the breach before widespread data exfiltration occurred.

For organizations looking to implement these monitoring capabilities, our SaaS Security Posture Management guide provides detailed frameworks for continuous security monitoring.

The Inventory vs. Behavioral Detection Gap

Most organizations struggle with integration inventory-knowing what's connected to their SaaS applications. Almost none have implemented behavioral detection for integration activity. This gap represents the difference between discovering breaches from vendor notifications and detecting compromises through your own security operations.

Integration inventory answers: "What's connected?" It catalogs OAuth tokens, API keys, webhooks, and automations. It identifies which applications hold access to your SaaS data and what permissions they've been granted. Inventory provides the foundation for integration security-you can't protect connections you don't know exist.

But inventory alone doesn't detect abuse. Knowing that 200 integrations connect to your Salesforce environment doesn't tell you whether any of those integrations are currently being exploited. Static point-in-time data doesn't reveal when integration behavior changes from legitimate business activity to malicious data exfiltration.

Integration behavior monitoring answers: "Is it behaving normally?" It establishes baselines for how integrations typically operate, then alerts when activity deviates from those patterns. This requires continuous observation, not periodic snapshots. It demands understanding the relationships between integrations, not just enumerating them.

The operational reality: organizations invest significant effort building integration inventories through manual OAuth token audits, spreadsheet tracking, and periodic vendor questionnaires. They achieve 60-70% visibility at best-missing shadow SaaS, undocumented API keys, and citizen developer automations. Then they struggle to keep those inventories current as users authorize new integrations daily.

Even organizations with comprehensive inventories lack behavioral detection. They know what integrations exist but can't answer whether those integrations are operating normally. When a vendor breach notification arrives, they scramble to determine what data the compromised integration could access, whether it showed unusual activity, and when the compromise might have occurred. All questions that behavioral monitoring answers proactively.

What Behavioral Detection Reveals

Behavioral detection for integration security identifies patterns that inventory-based approaches miss entirely:

Integration accessing data outside normal patterns signals potential compromise. An integration that historically read contact information now accessing financial records, or a tool that previously queried individual records now performing bulk exports. These behavioral changes often precede obvious data breaches by days or weeks.

Token used from unexpected network or geography reveals when OAuth tokens get stolen and replayed from attacker infrastructure. An integration that always authenticated from corporate cloud environments suddenly connecting from residential ISPs or foreign countries. These geographic anomalies provide high-confidence indicators of credential theft.

API request volume spiking beyond historical baselines indicates either legitimate business change or data exfiltration. A 10x increase in API calls over a 24-hour period deserves immediate investigation. Attackers often maximize data extraction during the window between compromise and detection-behavioral monitoring shrinks that window.

New data types accessed after months of consistent behavior suggests scope creep or malicious activity. An integration granted broad permissions when authorized but historically accessing only specific data types suddenly querying new information. This pattern often indicates attackers exploring what data they can access through compromised tokens.

Organizations implementing behavioral detection for integrations report 3-5x faster breach detection compared to relying on vendor notifications. They identify compromised OAuth tokens within hours rather than weeks, contain data exfiltration before it completes, and provide forensic timelines for incident response.

The Salesloft-Drift Lesson: Why Inventory Wasn't Enough

The Salesloft-Drift incident provides a case study in why integration inventory alone fails to protect organizations. Every affected company knew they had Salesforce integrations. Many maintained integration inventories that listed Salesloft and Drift as authorized applications. Some even conducted regular access reviews that confirmed these integrations served legitimate business purposes.

None of that prevented the breach. The attack succeeded because organizations lacked behavioral detection for integration activity. They couldn't answer:

Behavioral detection would have surfaced these signals. Anomalous token usage from unusual network locations. API request volumes exceeding historical baselines by orders of magnitude. Data access patterns inconsistent with the integration's documented business purpose. Each signal providing opportunity for investigation before widespread data exfiltration occurred.

The lesson: integration security requires both inventory and behavioral monitoring. Inventory establishes what connections exist and what permissions they hold. Behavioral detection identifies when those connections get abused. Organizations investing only in inventory remain vulnerable to the attack pattern that defined 2025's most significant SaaS supply chain breaches.

For deeper insights into these attack patterns, review our SaaS Security Threat Report 2025, which analyzes the integration-based attacks that bypassed traditional security controls.

Building Integration Security into Your SaaS Security Strategy

Integration security can't function as a standalone initiative separate from broader SaaS security strategy. The connections between applications are integral to how modern cloud environments operate; they enable the workflows, automations, and data flows that drive business value. Security must protect these connections without breaking the business processes they enable.

Start with visibility. Comprehensive integration discovery across all SaaS platforms provides the foundation. Deploy tools that automatically enumerate OAuth tokens, API keys, webhooks, and automations rather than relying on manual audits that capture 60-70% of connections at best. Allocate those resources toward continuous discovery that maintains current visibility as integrations proliferate.

Implement governance that matches SaaS velocity. Manual approval workflows and quarterly reviews can't keep pace with users authorizing integrations daily. Policy-based automation that routes high-risk authorization requests for review while auto-approving pre-vetted vendors balances security and business enablement. The goal isn't blocking integrations; it's ensuring someone with security context evaluates risk before OAuth tokens get granted.

Prioritize behavioral detection over static inventory. Knowing what integrations exist matters less than detecting when they behave abnormally. Invest in tools that establish behavioral baselines, correlate activity across integrations, and alert on anomalies that indicate compromise. This shifts integration security from periodic compliance checking to continuous threat detection.

Address the supply chain dimension. Your integration security posture depends partially on vendors you don't control. Third-party risk assessment, ongoing vendor monitoring, and incident response planning for vendor breaches become essential components. When a vendor gets compromised, you need to answer within hours: What data could they access? Did we detect unusual activity? What's our containment and recovery process?

Organizations building comprehensive integration security programs report significant risk reduction. They discover and remediate overprivileged OAuth tokens before they're exploited. They detect compromised integrations days or weeks faster than relying on vendor notifications. They provide audit evidence that satisfies compliance requirements for third-party risk management.

Most importantly, they transform integration security from a blind spot where attackers operate undetected into a monitored attack surface with behavioral detection and rapid response capabilities.

Map the Integrations in Your SaaS Environment

Your SaaS applications are connected by OAuth tokens, API keys, and webhooks you've never reviewed. Some enable legitimate business workflows; the Salesforce-Slack integration your sales team relies on, the HubSpot-Gmail connector that powers marketing automation, the Workato flows that synchronize data across platforms.

Some are stale; the analytics tool your team stopped using six months ago, the browser extension an employee installed for a one-time project, the automation someone built and forgot about. These zombie integrations represent pure risk with zero business value.

Some might already be compromised. Attackers who breached a third-party vendor inherited the OAuth tokens your organization granted. They're exploring what data they can access, planning exfiltration, and operating within the blind spots of your traditional security tools.

The difference between these scenarios: visibility and behavioral detection. Obsidian discovers every integration across your SaaS environment, maps the data they can access and the permissions they hold, and alerts when their behavior changes from normal patterns to potential compromise.

We don't just build integration inventories; we monitor the hidden layer between your applications where attackers bypass

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is SaaS integration security and why does it matter?

Integration security protects the connections between SaaS applications—OAuth tokens, API keys, webhooks, and iPaaS automations that enable data flow across your cloud ecosystem. It matters because the average enterprise SaaS platform connects to 42+ third-party applications, creating blind spots where attackers operate with impunity.

What are the six types of SaaS integrations and their security risks?

The six types are: native integrations (vendor-built connectors with persistent OAuth tokens), iPaaS platforms (centralized automation with broad access), custom API integrations (developer-built with often hardcoded credentials), OAuth-based third-party apps (user-authorized shadow SaaS), low-code/no-code automations (citizen developer gaps), and AI/LLM integrations (unclear data handling boundaries).

What are toxic combinations in SaaS integration security?

Toxic combinations occur when individually safe integrations combine to create unintended data exfiltration paths. For example, App A reads Salesforce data for reporting, App B writes to external storage, and App C (compromised) accesses that storage—creating a three-hop path from sensitive data to attacker infrastructure through legitimate integrations.

How do supply chain attacks amplify through SaaS integrations?

When attackers compromise a single vendor, they inherit OAuth tokens from every customer organization that authorized that vendor's integration. The Salesloft-Drift incident impacted 700+ organizations from a single vendor breach, demonstrating 10x faster propagation than human-mediated attacks that require compromising each organization individually.

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