Table of Contents: 

- Understanding Low-Code Security Risks 

- Real-World Security Incidents in Citizen Development 

- Technical Implementation Guide 

- Cost Analysis and ROI 

- Integration with Existing Security Tools 

- Best Practices and Guidelines

The Real Problem

Your business teams aren't waiting for IT anymore. They're building their own solutions using tools like Power Automate, Salesforce Flow, and ServiceNow. Marketing needs to sync lead data? They'll build a flow. Sales wants automated reports? They'll connect APIs themselves. 

Sure, you've got DLP to protect your sensitive data, but here's the thing - while you're watching for credit card numbers in emails, your well-meaning business users are building automated workflows that could be accidentally exposing your entire customer database through poorly configured APIs.

The Technical Stuff

Low-Code Security Risks: Real-World Examples

A sales ops team built a "harmless" Power Automate flow to sync customer data between Salesforce and SharePoint. Seems innocent enough, right? Except:

1. They used admin credentials because "it wasn't working" with regular access
2. The flow was pulling ALL customer fields, not just the ones they needed
3. The SharePoint site was set to "anyone in organization" for sharing
4. The API connections had way more permissions than necessary

Traditional DLP would miss this entirely because it looks like legitimate business activity. This is where Zenity comes in - it's built specifically to catch these kinds of issues.

How Zenity's Low-Code Security Platform Works

Think of Zenity as your security camera system for low-code apps. While DLP is watching your email and file shares, Zenity is watching:

- What APIs your automation flows are connecting to

- How they're authenticating

- What permissions they're using

- Where they're moving data

- How the flows are changing over time

Another realistic example I believe will be caught by their system:

1. Found a Power Automate flow with stored admin credentials

2. Used it to create a "legitimate" Salesforce integration

3. Set up automated data copying to SharePoint

4. Connected it to Teams for "notifications"

5. End result? Data quietly leaking out while looking like normal business automation

Implementing Low-Code Security: Deployment Guide

Zenity's deployment architecture consists of several key components that integrate with your low-code/no-code platforms (Note that some of the information I ‘guessed’ based on how I would implement it):

1. Platform Connectors: 

   - Direct API integration with major platforms (Power Platform, Salesforce, ServiceNow)

   - OAuth-based authentication requiring admin permissions

   - Agentless deployment with no endpoint installation needed

   - Read-only access to minimize operational impact

2. Integration Points:

   - Power Platform: Microsoft Graph API integration for flow configurations

   - Salesforce: Connected App setup with API access to Flow metadata

   - ServiceNow: REST API integration via MID server or direct connection

   - Custom connector framework for additional platforms

3. Data Collection:

   - Continuous monitoring of automation configurations

   - Real-time flow change detection

   - Metadata collection for permissions and connections

   - Activity logs for behavioral analysis

Integration Challenges and Solutions

While deployment is straightforward, several integration challenges need consideration:

1. Permission Management:

   - Challenge: Zenity requires elevated permissions across platforms

   - Solution: Dedicated service accounts with carefully scoped access

   - Risk Mitigation: Regular permission audits and rotation

   - Best Practice: Use Microsoft's least-privilege access model

2. Platform API Limitations:

   - Rate limiting on API calls requires careful throttling

   - Some platforms limit metadata access frequency

   - Historical data collection may need batching

   - Recommendation: Start with critical workflows first

3. Cross-Platform Correlation:

   - Different platforms use varied authentication methods

   - Data formats and schema mapping needs normalization

   - Connection tracking across platform boundaries

   - Solution: Built-in correlation engine with custom mapping

4. Change Management:

   - Platform updates can break integrations

   - API version compatibility issues

   - New feature adoption delays

   - Mitigation: Regular testing and version compatibility matrix

ROI of Low-Code Security Monitoring

Understanding the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) for Zenity implementation requires considering several factors:

1. Direct Costs:

   - License fees (usually per-user or per-flow basis)

   - Additional API consumption costs

   - Storage for audit logs and configuration history

   - Professional services for complex deployments

2. Operational Costs:

   - SOC team training on low-code security

   - Alert triage and investigation time

   - Regular platform maintenance

   - Integration updates and maintenance

3. Integration Costs:

   - Initial setup and configuration

   - Custom connector development if needed

   - API usage fees from platforms

   - Regular security reviews and updates

4. Risk Mitigation Value:

   - Reduced incident investigation time

   - Prevention of data exposure incidents

   - Automated compliance reporting

   - Improved security posture

Cost Optimization Strategies:

- Start with critical workflows and expand gradually

- Leverage automated remediation to reduce operational costs

- Use built-in reporting to avoid custom development

- Regular optimization of monitoring rules to reduce alert fatigue

ROI Considerations:

- Average incident cost reduction: 40-60%

- Alert investigation time reduction: 30-50%

- Compliance reporting time savings: 20-30%

- Risk surface reduction: 25-35%

These improvements should be measured against your organization's specific security metrics and risk tolerance levels.

Will SOC teams like it?

For SOC teams, this means:

Good news:

- You finally see what those 1000+ automation flows are actually doing

- You can spot risky configurations before they become incidents

- You get context around low-code app behavior

Challenge:

- More alerts to handle (but at least they're relevant)

- Your IR playbooks need updating for low-code incidents

- Analysts need to learn how these platforms work

Overall it is a posture management tool that reduces the attack surface, so while managing all the alerts could be a lot of work, it seems worth it. I wonder if LLM and automation can help in reducing work on the alerts here, but that might be out of scope for this blog post.

Low-Code Security vs Traditional DLP: Key Differences

When learning about Zenity I thought to myself, should one replace its DLP with Zenity? Well, nope. You need both. Here's why:

- DLP catches someone trying to email customer data to their personal account

- Zenity catches someone accidentally exposing that same data through a poorly configured automation

Think of it this way - DLP is your security guard checking physical document removal. Zenity is your security system watching how people are using your digital assembly line.

Best Practices for Securing Citizen Development

1. Practical Next Steps:

- Keep your DLP doing its thing

- Use Zenity to get visibility into your low-code landscape

- Start with high-risk automations (anything touching sensitive data)

- Update your incident response for low-code scenarios

2. Reality Check:

- Your business teams will keep building automations

- They're not security experts (and shouldn't have to be)

- You need visibility into what they're creating

- Traditional security tools weren't built for this

Looking Ahead

The low-code train isn't slowing down. If anything, with AI integration coming to these platforms, it's about to get even more interesting. You need security tools that understand these environments and can help you manage the risks without becoming the "Department of No."

For security pros, the key is accepting that citizen development is here to stay and adapting our security approach accordingly. Zenity isn't just another security tool - it's recognition that the way business gets done has changed, and our security needs to change with it.

Let me know if you have comments/remarks. You can also drop a note asking for other topics I can cover.