Why data security posture management and session-level protection are solving different halves of the same problem.
Your Data Security Posture Management deployment finished. You know where regulated data lives. You know which SaaS applications hold it, who has permissions, and which sharing settings are too broad. That’s real progress.
Now ask a harder question: what happens when an attacker bypasses all of that by hijacking an active session?
DSPM maps the static picture. It tells you where data sits and how it’s configured. What it doesn’t cover is the live session, the moment a valid user token gets intercepted, an OAuth consent gets manipulated, or an attacker operates inside a legitimate session wearing someone else’s identity. That’s a different risk surface, and it’s the one that adversaries are increasingly targeting because DSPM doesn’t see it.
The session is the new perimeter
Many SaaS security programs are built around a familiar model. Protect identities, enforce MFA, manage permissions, and monitor for suspicious logins. Those controls remain essential.
The challenge is that SaaS access often continues through approved applications, existing sessions, and authorization decisions that happen during normal work. When attackers exploit those paths, the activity can look like ordinary usage because it is happening inside the same mechanisms users rely on every day.
A typical sequence:
An employee receives a message in email or chat that links to a SaaS workflow they use regularly. The page looks familiar. The employee signs in and continues. During the interaction, the employee is prompted to approve a simple access request that appears routine, or the interaction results in an attacker capturing a session artifact. The attacker then uses that access to read data, search files, or take actions inside the SaaS environment. The actions can blend into normal activity patterns, which is why detection can be delayed.
MFA can be present and still not be the only line that matters. The risk moves from breaking authentication to taking advantage of authorized access that persists beyond a single login moment.
A DSPM tool in this situation still does valuable work. DSPM helps you discover sensitive data across SaaS and identify risky permission patterns and broad access. DSPM answers where sensitive data is and who or what can reach it.
The remaining gap is timing. Some attacks are about what happens during use, not just what is configured. The attacker’s goal shifts from finding sensitive data to operating as someone or something that already has access.
Consent phishing and session abuse are persistent patterns
Consent phishing is one example. A user is tricked into approving an application request that looks legitimate. The approval grants the application access to mail, files, or calendar data. The platform treats the access as authorized because it was granted through the standard flow.
This creates separation between two important categories of security capability. DSPM reduces structural risk by finding sensitive data and highlighting risky exposure conditions. Session-focused protection reduces real-time risk by limiting what untrusted content can do on a device during high-risk interactions and by keeping risky activity separated from corporate endpoints.
Secure Isolated Environments
Replica provides secure isolated environments for exactly these interactions. When your team needs to access untrusted content (investigating a phishing campaign, evaluating a suspicious OAuth application, researching threat infrastructure, opening links from unknown sources) that activity happens inside a fully isolated environment separated from your endpoint and your corporate network.
The browser session, the network traffic, the content rendering… all of it executes inside Replica’s environment, with managed attribution shielding who is accessing what. If something malicious fires during the interaction, it detonates inside the isolated environment. Your endpoint, your tokens, your active sessions are untouched.
This matters for the SaaS session problem specifically. When an analyst investigates a consent phishing lure inside a Replica environment, the OAuth consent flow can’t reach the analyst’s real credentials or corporate session. The investigation happens, the evidence is captured, and the analyst’s actual identity was never in the room.
Replica also produces consistent session records) activity logs, screen captures, network telemetry) that your security team can use during incident review. When leadership asks what happened and when, the evidence already exists in a structured form.
Two halves of the same problem
DSPM and session-level isolation are solving adjacent problems. DSPM reduces your exposure surface by telling you where data is, how it’s shared, and what’s misconfigured. Secure isolated environments reduce your attack surface by making sure that when your people do interact with risky content, the interaction can’t reach your production environment.
Both belong in the conversation. The organizations that deploy one and ignore the other are leaving a gap that adversaries like Midnight Blizzard have already demonstrated they know how to exploit.
FAQ
What does DSPM cover?
DSPM discovers sensitive data across cloud and SaaS environments, classifies it, and identifies exposure risks like broad permissions, risky sharing settings, and misconfigurations. It’s focused on data-at-rest posture.
How are SaaS accounts compromised when MFA is in place?
Attackers increasingly target session tokens and OAuth grants. Once an attacker captures a valid token or tricks a user into an OAuth consent flow, they can operate as that user without re-authenticating. The Midnight Blizzard attack on Microsoft used exactly this technique, MFA was available but irrelevant once the attackers had OAuth-based access.
What is consent phishing?
A technique where an attacker tricks a user into granting OAuth permissions to a malicious application. The user sees what looks like a routine consent screen. The attacker gains persistent access to SaaS resources through the authorized application.
How do secure isolated environments help with SaaS session risk?
When users access untrusted content inside a Replica environment, the interaction is fully separated from their endpoint and corporate network. Malicious content, OAuth lures, and session hijacking attempts execute inside the isolated environment and can’t reach real credentials or active sessions. Replica also captures session evidence for incident review.
