5 Tips for Managing Shadow IT
With remote work exacerbating the use of personal devices, home Wi-Fi networks, and cloud-based services, organizations increasingly face blind spots known as Shadow IT: unsanctioned hardware, services, and apps that put your business at risk.
As employees work remotely, company and personal technology converge, making it important for organizations to get a handle on their Shadow IT issues. Here are the steps you should take to minimize and eliminate your organization’s blindspots.
Managing Shadow IT
The key to reducing Shadow IT is visibility. Over the years, organizations have tried many methods to control the use of unsanctioned technology, but it’s been increasingly hard to ensure that all assets have been accurately reported. Evidence shows that the more people work from home, the more comfortable they get with using unapproved technology to get their job done.
32% of employees are using communication or collaboration tools that aren't explicitly approved by the IT department, and 58% aren’t completely satisfied with their company’s technologies, which is why they turn to Shadow IT.
Read more: 15 Eye-Opening Shadow IT Stats
IT and security leaders need a way to proactively discover Shadow IT across their network, without relying on manual reports or asset tracking, as well as quantify the risk posed by those assets. ThirdPartyTrust, through its Netskope integration, allows organizations to detect unknown cloud-based applications, and add them to the actively monitored IT inventory. Our partners at BitSight also offer capabilities to analyze the extended attack surface.
In addition, the following tips can provide enormous value to IT and security leaders.
5 Ways to Reduce Shadow IT
If you'd like to learn more about reducing Shadow IT and protecting your cloud vendor network, we can help.
