How StackAdapt Turned Rapid Scaling into a Security Success with DoControl

Who is StackAdapt?

StackAdapt is an award-winning marketing platform that brings brand and performance marketing together in one seamless view. Marketers from around the world use StackAdapt to run high-impact campaigns across a variety of digital channels, all from one place.

The Security Challenges StackAdapt Faced

As StackAdapt grew rapidly – both in its customer base and internal team – the volume of data, files, and accounts within their Google Workspace expanded just as quickly. 

This surge in headcount brought with it an increase in Google accounts to manage, more identities to protect, heightened insider risk, and a growing volume of sensitive information requiring safeguards.

While scaling their business, StackAdapt needed a way to keep security operations running seamlessly without slowing down productivity. They were looking for a solution that could keep pace with their rapid growth – protecting both their own data and their customers’ data – without creating roadblocks for their fast-moving teams.

4 Key Challenges During Growth:

• Shadow Apps – As new tools and apps were adopted across StackAdapt’s teams, the need for a more streamlined way to manage authorizations became clear, prompting the search for a solution that could improve visibility and reduce potential security risks.
  
  
• Misconfigurations – With rapid growth came the opportunity to strengthen how settings and permissions were managed across systems, ensuring sensitive data remained secure.
  
  
• Workflows & Bulk Remediation – Identifying issues was one step, but fixing them at scale required a more streamlined process. By improving workflows, StackAdapt could address risks across multiple accounts, users, applications, and files more efficiently.
  
  
• Scheduled Workflows – With so many moving parts, StackAdapt saw an opportunity to simplify regular security checks and automate key tasks, helping maintain consistent protection across its core SaaS environments. 

How DoControl Solved These Problems

Shadow Apps

Problem: As StackAdapt expanded, the need arose for a more effective way to track and manage app usage, ensuring full visibility and minimizing potential security risks. 

Solution: DoControl provided real-time visibility into all connected SaaS applications, allowing StackAdapt to quickly identify and remove unapproved tools before they could introduce vulnerabilities.

• Continuous discovery of all connected apps across the organization
• Automatic detection of unapproved or risky apps with tailored, contextual risk recommendations
• One-click remediation to disconnect unauthorized tools individually or in bulk

Misconfigurations

Problem: Rapid scaling highlighted the need for a more consistent way to manage settings and permissions, ensuring sensitive data remained protected.

Solution: DoControl automatically scanned for misconfigurations, alerted security teams in real time, and made it easy to fix them before they caused harm.

• Centralized, unified view of all misconfigurations with real-time status alerts 
• Full visibility into compliance standards, issues prioritized by impact, vulnerable categories, and monitored apps 
• Guided, tailored remediation steps to resolve issues efficiently and accurately

Workflows & Bulk Remediation

Problem: With 1,500 users and counting, manually resolving security risks, including historical and proactive cleanup across multiple accounts and files, became increasingly time-consuming without a way to take action at scale.

Solution: DoControl streamlined remediation by enabling bulk actions and customizable workflows, allowing StackAdapt to identify and remediate security risks  quickly and consistently.

• Bulk remediation to resolve historical issues in a single action
• Custom workflows to hit on multiple different scenarios and automate future policies, enabling a proactive and continuous, context-aware security response
• Interactive workflows that involve security teams or managers only when additional context or decision-making is required, maximizing business productivity 

As StackAdapt’s operations continue to scale, so too does the complexity of managing security risk associated with SaaS environments effectively. DoControl gives us the visibility, control, and automation capabilities needed to protect our data while keeping our teams productive and focused on driving the business forward. Partnering with DoControl empowers us to manage SaaS risk seamlessly, enabling the business to scale securely and maximise business performance.     ‍                                                                                                                                                                           Barry Dorgan, Senior Director of Information Security at StackAdapt

Scheduled Workflows

Problem: With over 1500 users leveraging StackAdapt’s Google Workspace environment, there are many moving parts, making it challenging to maintain consistent security checks without slowing the business down.

Solution: DoControl’s workflows allowed StackAdapt to automate and schedule routine security tasks, ensuring continuous protection without manual oversight.

• Scheduled scans for ongoing risk monitoring and remediation
• Automated tasks to keep security posture consistent and accurate 
• Minimal manual intervention needed, freeing up team resources

Summary & Key Results

Leveraging DoControl’s capabilities, StackAdapt strengthened its controls around its Google Workspace environment and significantly improved its security posture:

→ Public and external asset exposure reduced by ~75%

Real-time monitoring, centralized visibility, automated management, and granular remediation have mitigated risks posed from public and externally shared assets. 

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→ 602 workflows have been executed autonomously, saving ~2,800 hours of work

Proactive, low-code workflows with granular access controls run in the background 24/7, allowing security teams to focus on high-priority investigations and threats. The automation has also significantly reduced the time the security team spends on investigating alerts, triaging tickets, and engaging with employees - benefiting both security and business operations.

→ ~55,100 remediations completed within 90 Days

By leveraging DoControl’s industry-leading bulk remediation capabilities, StackAdapt was able to proactively address historical risk exposures and remediate potential threats at scale within its Google Workspace environment.

By combining proactive risk detection with powerful automation, DoControl has enabled StackAdapt to scale confidently, protect sensitive data, and maintain operational efficiency - proving that strong security and business agility can work hand in hand. 

We value our partnership with StackAdapt and look forward to supporting their continued success in securing their SaaS environment with DoControl!

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