Security Risks From Shadow IT

By Dinesh Ravi, Sr. Product Support Engineer, Vembu Technologies

Security risks are introduced when data or applications are moved outside protected systems, networks, physical locations, or security domains. In an IT environment, when we rely on different sources to manage the data within the organization it may lead to loss of data and that is the reason for shadow IT. For a better view, when an organization is in need of service from an external source to maintain its data, then we can conclude the firm is at risk by software and devices used by the external source. Those devices and software would be unfamiliar to an IT professional working within an organization. Data could then be transferred across the network, compromising the company’s systems and private information. This process of losing data to an external source which was considered a foreign object for an IT is called shadow IT or stealth IT.

Shadow IT risks can even emerge from the employee who was allowed to use unauthorized software on their own device without the knowledge of the IT admin. When we concern ourselves with shadow IT, especially SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), users outside the network can steal data from an organization without proper security in place. Employees who were allowed to install software without a clear understanding are not in a position to understand the risks of shadow IT. The risks of shadow IT will mostly emerge from BYOD (Bring your own device) by an organization’s employees.

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