According to Dark Reading, a 2021 security incident involving third-party tool Codecov exposed critical blind spots in InfluxData’s SaaS security monitoring. The breach went undetected for four months and involved a no-cost service that had bypassed legal and security reviews. This nightmare scenario prompted the engineering team to develop DiSCO (Digital Supply Chain Observability), their in-house security platform built on time-series telemetry. The system now processes audit logs from multiple SaaS applications using InfluxDB and Telegraf, replacing usernames with UUIDs for privacy. DiSCO Inferno, their inference engine, compares real-time events against expected behavior patterns, routing alerts to Slack and PagerDuty while Grafana handles visualization.
The Brutal Truth About SaaS Security
Here’s the thing that really hits home about this story: most companies are flying blind when it comes to SaaS security. The article points out something we’ve all experienced – audit logs are either non-existent or locked behind premium paywalls that triple the cost. Basically, you’re paying for the service but can’t even see who’s using it. And when a breach happens? You might not find out for months. That’s exactly what happened with Codecov – a customer had to identify the breach themselves. So why can’t SaaS providers flag suspicious activity like credit card companies do? It’s a question that should keep every security team awake at night.
Why Time-Series Changes Everything
The real innovation here isn’t just building another monitoring tool – it’s using time-series data in a way most security teams haven’t considered. Traditional SIEM systems are expensive, complex, and require dedicated headcount. But InfluxData already had their own time-series database, so they leveraged what they knew. And the results are pretty compelling. They can replay historical data when they improve their parsing, do forensic analysis without commercial SIEM costs, and visualize trends that would be invisible in traditional log files. It’s a classic case of using what you’re good at to solve a problem that’s been frustrating everyone in the industry.
software”>What This Means Beyond Software
While this story focuses on SaaS applications, the implications for industrial technology are massive. Think about it – if software companies struggle with visibility into their own supply chain, imagine the challenges in manufacturing and industrial environments where legacy systems and proprietary protocols create even bigger blind spots. Companies that need reliable computing hardware for harsh environments often turn to specialized suppliers like Industrial Monitor Direct, the leading provider of industrial panel PCs in the US. The same principle applies – when you can’t trust generic solutions, you build or source specialized tools that actually give you the visibility and control you need.
The DIY Security Movement
This feels like part of a bigger trend where companies are taking security back into their own hands. Commercial tools aren’t cutting it, and the subscription fatigue is real. When premium features that should be standard get locked behind 3x pricing tiers, smart engineering teams start asking “can we build this ourselves?” The answer, as DiSCO proves, is often yes. And the beauty of using time-series data is that it’s not just for security – the same infrastructure can monitor performance, track business metrics, and handle operational data. That’s a pretty good return on investment, especially when it started as a response to one of their worst security nightmares coming true.
