Shadow IT is when employees use unapproved software, apps, and devices to do their jobs. Typically, employees have good intentions and may turn to various ad-hoc services to get their work done because they don’t believe their employer provides them with a good solution. Since the 2020 Coronavirus outbreak, surveys of IT professionals have revealed that the rise in employees working from home has generated a surge in this practice. Find out why even the best-intentioned uses of shadow IT can pose a security threat to your valuable information and how you can control it.
Why is Shadow IT a Security Problem?
According to reports from MS Office, almost three-quarters of executives admit they don’t know how many shadow IT applications or devices their employees use. This isn’t surprising. According to Microsoft, even security professionals gravely underestimate the problem. On average, they believe all workers in their organization use 30 to 40 unapproved tech solutions when a better figure would probably be closer to 1,000.
These facts also aren’t surprising when you see studies that reveal that about 87% of senior managers have uploaded sensitive documents to a personal email or cloud account. If even senior leadership succumbs to these temptations, you can bet your business has a widespread problem.
While mostly well-intentioned, using all of these unapproved and unknown apps can generate dozens of serious problems for data security and data integrity. Some critical issues include:
Lack of visibility: IT can’t manage resources that they aren’t even aware of. Companies need tools to monitor their networks and any new devices or applications that interface with it.
Impossible to enforce compliance rules: If a business doesn’t even know a resource exists, there’s no way to make sure it complies with government regulations or internal governance. Especially with sensitive data, organizations need to ensure employees get permission before using third-party solutions.
High risk of lost data: Again, there’s no way to know if somebody uploaded the latest and most correct version of a document to their personal email or cloud service and then got sick or abruptly left the company or simply had a problem with their unapproved device or software’s storage. Businesses need a way to track information additions, deletions, and changes, and they also need to ensure these changes get backed up.
Impaired efficiency: If one team has decided to share documents on a cloud server but another team’s passing email attachments around, departments will fall out of alignment. If multiple departments need solutions for such issues as collaboration and document sharing, the company should implement one approved solution.
Vulnerability to digital threats: Obviously, this is the 900-pound gorilla in the room. You have probably read plenty of stories about attacks on popular software like Zoom and Google Drive. These days, companies are particularly vulnerable to phishing attempts made on an unsuspecting user’s email. Solutions that can reduce the risk could include enterprise-security software, audit trails, and two-factor authentication.
Again, most employees turn to outside solutions out of the best of intentions. A good first step probably includes surveying your workers to find out what features they lack in the toolkit your business already provides for them. Then, you can keep people productive and your business safe by evaluating various solutions to fill in these gaps.
At the same time, you’ll also help improve company-wide efficiency and alignment and make security’s job easier by keeping your entire company in alignment. You won’t have to worry that a director has uploaded a sensitive document to his email and one team leader uploaded the attached document to Google docs right before sharing the Edit link with his entire group. In the end, nobody can say which version was correct or even if any of them were.
Future-Proof Your Workforce and Business With M-Files
An enterprise-grade, AI-enabled information management solution like M-Files can almost automatically remove the temptation for employees to turn to ad-hoc solutions to do their jobs.
For example:
- The software’s smart features can give employees everything they need to work, share, and collaborate. They won’t have the motivation to turn to private email, software, or storage accounts to get their jobs done — especially when they can access business critical information from anywhere and from any device.
- The sophisticated, certified security will ensure that employees have only the access they need, and even better, M-Files will handle audit trails and version control. You won’t have to worry about lost, missing, or confusing data.
- Using this one, standardized solution will also help keep teams, departments, and entire companies in alignment as they all rely upon the same system. This helps improve communication, business processes, and efficiency.
- Employees will also appreciate the fact they can securely login to M-Files from anywhere and with various internet-connected devices. M-Files enables the remote workforce you employ today and in the future.
Schedule some time with us — we’re here to be a resource for you about your shadow IT concerns within your organization. We’ll explain how M-Files features can ensure your employees have a secure, workable solution. We can also arrange a free trial or demo, so you can actually watch M-Files in action as it improves your company’s security, efficiency, and alignment.
Source: https://www.m-files.com/blog/how-to-outmaneuver-shadow-it-with-intelligent-information-management/
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