LastPass is continuing its push beyond traditional password management. At Black Hat 2025 in Las Vegas, the company pulled back the curtain on SaaS Protect, a new feature aimed at helping small and mid-sized businesses get control of the growing mess of SaaS apps and shadow IT.
The new tool builds on the company’s existing SaaS Monitoring system. That earlier feature, launched back in May, gave IT teams a better view of which applications employees were using. SaaS Protect now gives those teams more power to actually act on that data.
With SaaS Protect, businesses can set custom policies for SaaS tools, detect credential misuse, and block risky or unsanctioned apps in real time. It’s an effort to bring order to the chaos, especially as more workers bring in AI tools and cloud services on their own, often without telling IT.
According to research from Zylo, the average small or mid-sized business now uses around 275 SaaS applications. Yet most IT departments only manage a small slice of that… just 26 percent of the spend, actually. The rest often flies under the radar, handled by different departments or individual employees. That’s a big security hole, and LastPass is aiming to plug it.
Credential reuse adds to the mess. Nearly eight out of ten people still reuse passwords, and when those weak credentials end up tied to apps IT doesn’t even know exist, it opens the door to real risk. That’s exactly what SaaS Protect is trying to stop.
LastPass says the new tool doesn’t require complex deployments or hardware. Everything runs through the company’s browser extension, so businesses can roll it out without major disruption. Admins get reports, alerts, and enforcement data directly in the dashboard.
The company is pitching this as part of what it calls “Secure Access Experiences.” That’s a fancy way of saying they’re going beyond password storage and trying to become a one-stop shop for visibility, hygiene, and access control. SaaS Monitoring started that process earlier this year. SaaS Protect takes it further.
SaaS Protect is available now in beta for Business and Business Max customers. It will be included in the Business Max package at no extra cost when it rolls out more widely this fall.
