How SaaS Security Inline Determines an Application's Risk Score

Attribute Identification
: Palo Alto Networks analyzes the current SaaS security landscape to identify characteristics of SaaS applications that can impact an application's security posture. These characteristics are the attributes that we will identify for the SaaS applications that SaaS Security Inline can detect in your environment. These attributes are divided into the following categories based on how they can impact an application's security posture.
Compliance attributes identify whether an application adheres to various regulatory requirements and standards.



Identity Access Management attributes identify an application's authentication and access control capabilities.



Security and Privacy attributes identify product features for protecting data.


Attribute Identification Updates
: Palo Alto Network's analysis of the SaaS security landscape is ongoing. As new threats emerge, new application attributes are added to SaaS Security Inline.
Attribute Value Determination
: For each SaaS application that can be detected by SaaS Security Inline, Palo Alto Networks determines the values to assign to the application attributes. Palo Alto Networks uses a variety of techniques to determine whether the SaaS application has the capabilities identified by the attributes. For many attributes, we rely on publicly available documentation to determine attribute values. This publicly available documentation includes a SaaS application's help documentation, privacy policy, and security documents. For other attributes, we examine the application domain or application traffic to determine attribute values.
In most cases, the determination of attribute values is an automated process. For certain priority applications, we manually determine attribute values. We identify applications as priority applications based on application usage and user feedback.
Compliance Attribute Determination

: To determine these attribute values, we rely completely on the documentation and public links of the application.

Identity Access Management Attribute Determination

: To determine these attribute values, we rely mostly on the documentation and public links of the application. For a subset of applications that we have identified as priority applications, we access the application to determine attribute values.

Security and Privacy Attribute Determination

: We use several methods to determine these attribute values. The method we use depends on the particular attribute.

Attributes	Attribute Determination Method
Data Ownership File/Content Sharing Audit Log Disaster Recovery Encryption at Rest Encryption Strength at Rest Native Data Classification Data Retention Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions Session Timeout Third Party Data Sharing	To determine values for these attributes, we rely completely on the documentation and public links of the application.
Encryption in Transit	We examine the SaaS application domain to identify the TLS versions that the application supports.
HTTP Security Headers	We analyze application traffic to identify whether the SaaS application is using security headers.
Protected from Downgrade Attacks	We examine the SaaS application domain to identify the TLS versions that the application supports. We also examine whether the SaaS application allows TLS 1.0 or TLS 1.1 connections.
Spoof Risk Level	We analyze the DMARC and SPF records for the SaaS application domain to determine the value for this attribute.
Attribute Value Determination Updates
:
On a monthly basis, we identify new SaaS applications and add the applications to the application library. We determine the attribute values for these new applications.
On a monthly basis, we manually verify attribute data for priority applications. If necessary, we update attribute values based on this research.
On a monthly basis, we measure the accuracy of the attribute data collected by our automated processes. On a quarterly basis, we update our automated processes based on this research.
On a quarterly basis, we collect and update attribute values for applications by using our updated automated processes.
Attribute Weight Assignment
: We assign weights to application attributes, which will affect the risk score calculation. We assign each attribute a default weight from 0-100. As required by the risk score calculation, the combined weights for all of the attributes total 100.
To assign default weights, we assess the security impact of the attribute categories and the individual attributes. Attributes that we consider to have a greater security impact are assigned greater weights, and will have a greater impact on an application's risk score. You can view the default weights from the SaaS Security Settings page (
Settings
Configure
Configure Global Risk Score
). From this page, you can also adjust the weights assigned to attributes.

Attribute Weight Assignment Updates
: As we add attributes to SaaS Security Inline, we revise the attribute weight assignments, which in turn can affect the application risk scores. We might also update weight assignments if we determine that certain attributes should have a greater or lesser impact on an application's risk score.
Risk Score Calculation
: SaaS Security Inline assigns a risk score for each application by completing the following actions:
SaaS Security Inline assigns a risk score to each attribute based on the attribute value. The attribute value identifies an application characteristic that strengthens or weakens the application's overall security posture. If the value weakens the security posture, the attribute is assigned a higher risk score. For example, the MFA attribute value indicates whether an application offers multi-factor authentication (MFA). If the application does support MFA, the attribute is assigned the lowest risk score. However, if the attribute value indicates that the application does not offer MFA (or that MFA support cannot be derived from the application documentation), the attribute is assigned a higher risk score.
To determine the application's overall risk score, SaaS Security Inline calculates the weighted average of the individual attribute risk scores. The weighted average is based on the weights that were assigned to the attributes.
SaaS Security Inline scales the risk score within a range of 1-10, with 1 representing the lowest risk and 10 representing the greatest risk, and assigns the risk score to the application.
If you think there are adjustments that we should make to an application's risk score, send us feedback. To send us feedback, click on the following icon, which appears on the Application Dictionary, Discovered Applications, and Application Detail views.

In the Give App Feedback form, select
Risk score adjustment
as the Feedback Type.