The way to handle shadow IT and cut back your assault floor

In at present’s fast-paced enterprise atmosphere, staff more and more flip to unauthorized IT options to streamline their work and increase productiveness. Often known as “shadow IT,” these methods, units, software program, and companies function exterior the purview of your group’s IT division.

And whereas it’s typically adopted with good intentions, shadow IT can introduce vital safety dangers, compliance points, and hidden prices. 

This text explores the prevalence of shadow IT, the dangers it poses and discusses methods for managing shadow IT, together with options that allow the steady discovery of unknown IT belongings.

Shadow IT examples and prices

The rise of shadow IT might be attributed to a number of elements, pushed by the necessity for effectivity and frustration with inflexible IT processes. Staff typically resort to unauthorized options, corresponding to unapproved collaboration instruments, to beat these obstacles.

This pattern is especially prevalent amongst distant groups, the place efficient communication is essential.

One other contributing issue is the widespread availability of cloud companies. With user-friendly functions readily accessible, staff can simply implement instruments with out going via official IT channels.

Shadow IT takes numerous kinds, together with using private units for work, adoption of unauthorized cloud companies for file sharing and collaboration, utilization of unapproved productiveness apps and communication instruments, and deployment of software program with out IT’s data.

Nonetheless, the prevalence of shadow IT poses vital safety and monetary dangers to organizations. Analysis findings spotlight the severity of the difficulty:

• Kaspersky uncovered that 85% of organizations face cyber incidents, with 11% of these tied on to shadow IT. 
• CIO Perception discovered that 81% of line-of-business staff and 83% of IT employees use nonapproved SaaS apps.
• Cellular Mentor revealed that one out of each three worker bypasses firm safety insurance policies to finish their duties. 
• Gartner estimated that shadow IT spending in massive enterprises counts for 30-40% of the finances.

Mitigating shadow IT dangers

To successfully mitigate the dangers related to shadow IT, your group ought to undertake a complete strategy that encompasses the next methods:

1. Understanding the foundation causes: Interact with totally different enterprise items to determine the ache factors that drive staff to hunt unauthorized options. Streamline your IT processes to cut back friction and make it simpler for workers to perform their duties inside permitted channels, minimizing the temptation to bypass safety measures.
2. Educating staff: Increase consciousness throughout your group in regards to the dangers related to shadow IT and supply permitted alternate options. Foster a tradition of collaboration and open communication between IT and enterprise groups, encouraging staff to hunt steering and help when choosing know-how options.
3. Establishing clear insurance policies: Outline and talk tips for the suitable use of private units, software program, and companies. Implement penalties for coverage violations to make sure compliance and accountability.
4. Leveraging know-how: Implement instruments that allow your IT staff to constantly uncover and monitor all unknown and unmanaged IT belongings. By gaining a centralized view of your group’s on-line publicity, you possibly can successfully plan remediation efforts to shut safety gaps and reduce the affect of shadow IT.

One promising answer for effectively managing shadow IT and controlling your group’s assault floor is the adoption of Exterior Assault Floor Administration (EASM) instruments. These instruments facilitate steady discovery, evaluation, and monitoring of all entities related to your organization’s on-line publicity.

By taking an outside-in strategy, EASM empowers you to determine beforehand unknown belongings, enhancing your total safety posture and enabling proactive danger mitigation.

The position of EASM in managing shadow IT 

To boost your group’s cyber resilience towards the dangers of shadow IT, it’s endorsed to spend money on a strong EASM answer supplied by Outpost24. This highly effective software supplies real-time discovery, evaluation, and monitoring of all internet-facing belongings related to your group.

With its interactive dashboard, you acquire a complete view of your reside assault floor, enabling you to shortly determine and prioritize vulnerabilities for remediation. This helps you allocate assets successfully and handle essentially the most important dangers first.

To additional streamline the remediation course of, Outpost24’s EASM answer seamlessly integrates with fashionable platforms corresponding to AWS, Azure, Cortex XSOAR, Jira, and ServiceNow. These integrations guarantee a clean workflow and allow environment friendly collaboration between totally different groups and methods.

A strong option to illuminate the shadows

In at present’s fast-paced work atmosphere, staff typically resort to unauthorized shadow IT options to boost productiveness. Nonetheless, it’s essential for organizations to acknowledge and handle the inherent safety, compliance, and productiveness dangers related to such practices. 

EASM supplies a strong option to illuminate the shadows — permitting your group to regain management over its assault floor and in the end mitigate the actual dangers related to shadow IT.

Get began along with your free assault floor evaluation.

Sponsored and written by Specops Software program.