Vendor Risk Management

SaaS Applications
1

Due to regulations (DORA in our case) we have to setup vendor risk management. Has anyone ever done this for their Entra-integrated SaaS applications?

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Great question! Vendor risk management setup for Entra ID-integrated SaaS applications under regulations such as DORA is definitely doable, and Entra ID actually provides several built-in capabilities that support compliance efforts.

Key steps I recommend:

  1. Inventory & Classification: Start by cataloging all your Entra-connected SaaS apps and classify them by criticality (critical, important, non-critical) based on business impact and data sensitivity.

  2. Leverage Entra’s Built-in Controls: Use Conditional Access Policies, app governance features, and Microsoft’s Cloud App Security integration to establish baseline security controls and monitoring.

  3. Vendor Assessment Framework: For each critical/important SaaS provider, conduct assessments covering:

    • SOC 2 Type II compliance

    • Data residency and cross-border transfer controls

    • Incident response capabilities and SLAs

    • Business continuity and DR plans

    • Third-party risk management practices

  4. Continuous Monitoring: Implement ongoing monitoring through Entra’s sign-in logs, risk detections, and app usage analytics to track vendor-related risks in real-time.

DORA-specific considerations: Focus on operational resilience requirements - ensure your critical SaaS vendors have robust BCM plans and that you have documented exit strategies or alternatives.

I’m actually working on a comprehensive blog post that will dive deeper into vendor risk frameworks for cloud-integrated environments. I’ll share the link once it’s published!

Has anyone else tackled DORA compliance for their SaaS stack? I would love to hear other approaches.

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