Shadow IT, what are you doing with it?

It’s been a while back (2013) that Mobiquity, a provider of complex business-critical enterprise class applications, conducted a major study on the use of its own IT tools within digital business environments.

The result was remarkable: almost 60 percent of all employees of medium and large companies in the Netherlands, the mobile business apps that were supposed to use for work were found to be left behind.

Why the official business apps were often not popular, this same study also showed. The Business to Employee apps often lacked strong design and ease of use was often less large than with more customer and consumer-oriented applications.

Mobile business applications also often did not meet the quality we are used to as consumers: 26 percent of smartphone users and nearly 20 percent of tablet users who did stick to the mobile company app found that the productivity suffered from the prescribed rules under their loyalty. The reverse world.

However, the same study showed that only 24 percent of companies surveyed used a formal BYOD policy (Bring Your Own Device).

But that was 2013. What’s the matter now?

The Mobiquity 2013 research never really updated, but in 2017 it was still written that (according to Cisco) the use of the shadow cloud was 15 times the size of CIOs themselves estimated.

Put these allegations in addition to Brocade’s research that shows that 80 percent of the 200 CIOs surveyed by them regularly encounter unauthorized cloud or SaaS use – and we can safely ask whether so much has changed since 2013.

The question is: what is the problem with shadow IT?

Security and GDPR

Legally, there are quite a few hooks and eyes on the rampant use of private tools in the workplace. First of all, a tangle of shadow IT makes it difficult to link databases and expand processes. But shadow IT is not just a pure management issue. Also, there is often an overview. There are loose pickings of information everywhere in places that people sometimes don’t even know that they exist – while the IT department is expected to be properly maintained and secured. But how can company data be protected if the IT department has no idea which apps employees process, store, and send their data?

Shadow IT poses a serious security problem and that has been something to take into account since the introduction of the GDPR.

What to do?

Despite the serious risks, many CIOs see little benefit in banning employees from using their own cloud and SaaS applications. Shadow IT indicates, as one does not quite reason, on a need of the business you can better accommodate, rather than denying that there is a problem.

Of course, talking to your employees is better than banning. But the question that is important: do you know what’s really going on in your digital workplace when it comes to shadow IT?

No? Or aren’t you quite sure?

Think about software that lets you smartly monitor what your employees use to applications. CloudConnected’s Cloud Firewall makes the use of shadow IT insightful across your entire corporate network.

As an IT manager, you get a clear overview of what tools are used within your network, so you can also determine whether these apps fit into the organization’s policy.

Really unsafe tools (or websites that contain spyware) are of course blocked immediately, but our Cloud Firewall also offers the ability to see what tools are used within your network. A nice reason to start the conversation with your employees.

Want to try our Firewall for 30 days for free? Then quickly schedule an advisory interview free of charge via this link.