What do we mean when we talk about shadow IT or parallel IT? We are referring to software not managed by the IT department that employees use to meet their needs. These cloud-based tools pose a significant security threat to the organization.
According to studies, approximately half of IT budgets are spent on resolving the problems that Shadow IT creates within the organization. This is because employees—roughly 80% in organizations—do not feel it is necessary to report this to their company’s IT managers, and in this scenario, we find that more than 82% of companies are completely unaware of the number of shadow applications their employees use day in and day out. The most widespread shadow SaaS solutions among organizations are Dropbox and WeTransfer, which essentially aim to meet needs that the tools already available do not fulfill.
Shadow IT, therefore, becomes a major problem when employees use it to work with confidential and/or sensitive customer or company information. Can you imagine a bank sharing large amounts of sensitive information via WeTransfer? When employees store and distribute this data across various platforms, the information ends up stored at rest without encryption on uncontrolled servers outside the organization, with no knowledge of where it is hosted. In the event of a cyberattack, credential theft, or data exfiltration, this information will be exposed to third parties, primarily posing a problem for the brand’s reputation and public image (as in the Yahoo! case or, more recently, EasyJet) and constituting a regulatory violation, which in Europe carries heavy financial penalties for the organization.
How to prevent Shadow IT in your organization?
It is essential that organizations’ IT teams maintain control over the software and tools their employees use on a daily basis to prevent cybersecurity issues. In this case, it is important to:
- Analyze employees’ needs
- Determine how the tools at their disposal meet those needs in accordance with the IT and cybersecurity strategy.
When it comes to tools for sending and receiving sensitive and/or large files, it is often assumed that collaborative environments included in enterprise suites—such as Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive—suffice. However, this is not the case; these tools were developed for internal productivity among employees and lack specific security configurations or advanced end-to-end encryption standards. They were not designed as a channel for communication with parties outside the organization and constantly put company information at risk. This is where Shadow IT issues begin.
On one hand, it is important to consider security, and on the other, the possibility of human error on the part of employees. They are the weakest link, as they may inadvertently share confidential folders with third parties outside the organization.
For the secure sending and receiving of corporate files, Tranxfer includes advanced security policies and an easy-to-use user and administrator interface. Along with SIEM integration, Tranxfer also offers traceability and audit reports that, together with its configuration, enable transfers that comply with GDPR.
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