Are you aware of the risks lurking within your technology landscape?
Join us today as we uncover the truth behind shadow IT
and how it can impact your security, compliance and operational efficiencies.
In today's session, we will explore some real world examples
that illustrate what shadow IT entails.
Its underlying causes, potential benefits and inherent risks.
Let's start off with:
have you heard of shadow IT?
and how it's a big problem for enterprise businesses?
It refers to software, hardware,
or IT resources that are in the Enterprise Network
without your IT team's knowledge.
And it's very important for us to differentiate shadow IT
with malicious assets,
because shadow IT is not malware per se.
It is unsanctioned resources deployed by your authorized users.
Here's a few examples to really paint the picture.
Let's say your employees
are sharing files from their own personal Dropbox or thumb drive
instead of using the company approved file sharing system,
or they're possibly joining meetings in Zoom
instead of the company standard, which may be Webex.
or even using innocuous grammar checks,
or maybe using their own personal mobile and laptop devices
in the Enterprise network.
Unfortunately for businesses and their security teams,
around 80% of employees are preferring to use shadow IT
because of its quick adaptability and adoption across the team,
as well as its perceived superior functionality.
Some of the employees may even be recommended
to use these different platforms and applications from their clients and partners,
maybe to enhance collaboration on projects per se.
The trend here that highlights for us
is that there is a high demand in efficiency
and flexibility in today's workstation.
The flip side here is that, as I mentioned before, shadow IT
is operating outside the awareness and protection of the IT team.
So any vulnerabilities that could have been tied to them
have gone unaddressed,
making shadow IT prime targets for adversaries.
And according to the article published in 2023 by IBM,
the average cost of a data breach in a U.S. company
is around $9.4 million
The reason why I'm bringing this up is because shadow IT
is actually a key component that increases the likelihood of a data breach.
Now, let's dive into some key points on shadow IT
such as the risks and challenges that it brings forth.
Here's what you need to know.
There is increase and exposure
on average organizations that undergo an attack surface management review
discover that they have 30% more exposed assets
than they were initially aware of.
And as mentioned,
since there are so many new assets that are coming into their vision,
there was a lot of vulnerabilities that could have gone under their radar as well,
making it a key risk to the business.
Another risk is data insecurity.
With storing and accessing data across multiple shadow IT
applications and devices.
It poses the concern of data inconsistency
because you're having this data scattered across multiple different resources,
and they could be accessed and distributed as unofficial,
invalid and outdated data.
Another risk is compliance.
With regulations out there,
such as HIPA, PCIDSS, and GDPR.
They have very strict regulations
on handling personally identifiable information,
and if you're not compliant, you could risk paying a hefty fee.
You could risk your own reputation being on the line
and even facing legal action against your business.
And last but definitely not least,
because there's a whole lot of risks out there with shadow IT
But the fourth one that we're going to be exploring today is business efficiencies.
Not all of shadow IT
or multiple different applications and resources that our shadow IT
is going to seamlessly integrate into your IT
infrastructure.
And this could really hinder workflows and the sharing of information,
because if your IT department steps in and tries
to change anything on the network or any connecting resources,
it could really impede or completely disrupt a relied upon shadow IT
process from executing that the team really relies on
to continue their workflow.
With all of these risks in mind,
I also want to pull out a stat here from a an article published in 2022
which covers the surface, the state of attack surface management,
and it shows that eight
in ten
that's right, eight in ten organizations have fallen victim to shadow IT
compromise within the last year.
And even though the risks are very apparent
and they've only been increasing, so has the usage of shadow IT
because employees now have very simple
and easy access to SaaS based platforms.
They're also using their personal, mobile and laptop devices
on the Enterprise Network with the shift to the remote workforce.
So that's also a very scary but transparent view
for us to have on the risks that shadow IT can bring forth.
Now, with a clear understanding of the risks of shadow IT,
it's also important for us to consider the benefits that may come
to the team and the company for us to address it accordingly.
So let's cover some of the benefits,
starting off
with an increase in agility.
So shadow IT enables your employees
to adapt quickly and adopt to different platforms that they choose.
So they're also leveraging new technologies that are going
to increase the agility of the business.
There's also the benefit
of an increased flexibility
with your employees
because now that they're leveraging what they deem
are the tools that best fit their role,
they're performing in a more productive way, and they're also
having a more exciting experience that they're more satisfied with.
Another benefit here is streamlining your IT assets.
because with shadow IT, it's reducing the costs and resources
you need to onboard new IT assets onto your company.
So taking the risks and benefits into account,
it's time for us to effectively mitigate shadow IT.
Now let's talk about mitigations.
So we've seen that
even though there are a lot of risks tied to shadow IT
we can't ignore the benefits that the team gives back for us as feedback.
We don't want to completely
eliminate shadow IT because we see that a lot of them maybe
work more productively and they're more satisfied with their workflow.
So to address that, we can then bring shadow IT
that we currently have identified along the way and align it
with our current standard
IT security protocols.
So while still taking the team's feedback into the benefits,
while still keeping a priority on security,
while still keeping a priority on security.
Another mitigation is implementing
different tools that are out there to really help us
addressing shadow IT
such as ASM, or Attack Surface Management, solutions
that will continuously monitor our internet facing assets
or anything that has been exposed along the way
to also discover and identify the vulnerabilities there
so you can assess them and mitigate them accordingly.
Another tool is going to be cloud asset security brokers.
This tools allows you to establish
secure connections between your employees and your cloud assets,
while also implementing security measures such as encryption,
access controls and malware detections along the way.
And it also has some abilities to
continuously fetching your cloud assets.
So anything that had been previously unknown will come to light
By understanding the risks and benefits that comes with shadow IT
and implementing the appropriate security measures,
organizations can harness the advantages
while mitigating the vulnerabilities.
Ensuring security and efficiency in their technology landscape.
Thank you.
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