From the course: The Cybersecurity Threat Landscape

Explore the threat of shadow IT

From the course: The Cybersecurity Threat Landscape

Explore the threat of shadow IT

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- [Instructor] Most of the dangers on the cybersecurity threat landscape come from malicious actors outside of your organization. Shadow IT is different though because this threat comes from within your organization and many times it's not malicious. That doesn't mean it's not a serious problem. Let's take a look at Shadow IT and why it's part of the cybersecurity threat landscape. Shadow IT refers to the unauthorized use of systems, software, personal devices, or cloud services by enterprise employees. To best manage and secure IT systems, all technology purchases should be approved and budgeted by a shared services IT function, but users will sometimes go around IT and purchase technology with their own budget. When implemented, this unsanctioned and often unmanaged technology solution becomes part of the Shadow IT in the enterprise. IT will either find out about these Shadow implementations after they've been deployed or even worse, not at all. There are many reasons behind the rise of Shadow IT but some of the most common are understaffed IT departments that can't support the IT needs of users. The perception by users that IT is too slow or restrictive with technology deployments, and easy access to software as a service or SaaS solutions like Dropbox, Salesforce, or Amazon web services. Shadow IT can represent a large amount of spending in organizations. In fact, Gartner has estimated that Shadow IT accounts for 30 to 40% of IT spending in large enterprises. Other research states that this number could be even higher but many enterprise leaders either aren't aware of the Shadow IT problem or downplay it as not that big of a deal. That can be a costly mistake because there are real risks associated with Shadow IT, simply put it's impossible for the enterprise to secure systems that the organization's IT function isn't even aware of. Here are just a few of the Shadow IT risks. First is data loss, if the Shadow IT systems are processing or storing important information, it probably isn't being included in the enterprise backup solution. So if the data is lost there's no chance for recovery, even worse if the information is confidential and the Shadow IT systems aren't secured, that could lead to a data breach. Next is unpatched vulnerabilities, Shadow IT systems probably aren't being included in vulnerability scans or scheduled patch cycles. That means these systems could have vulnerabilities that expose them to attacks and possible data breaches. And lack of security compliance, all sanctioned IT solutions should be deployed with standard security controls that may not exist on Shadow IT systems. These could include antimalware, encryption, security monitoring, and more. And enterprise could be subject to big fines if a data breach occurs on Shadow IT systems that aren't compliant with enterprise or regulatory security controls. We can expect that IT departments will continue being challenged by users who circumvent required processes for implementing IT solutions. For this reason, we'll likely see Shadow IT being part of the cybersecurity threat landscape for some time.

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