How Shadow IT is Putting Your Business’ Critical Files at Risk

Shadow IT is not a new concept, but many people fail to even properly understand this idea, let alone the many ways in which it can be putting business critical files at risk.

Shadow IT is a term that describes the use of both hardware and software that is not supported by the central IT department within an organization.

By learning more about shadow IT and what it means, you can begin to get a better idea regarding what you should be doing about it today.

How Shadow IT is Affecting You

One of the most prominent ways that you're probably dealing with shadow IT and don't even realize it has to do with BYOD, or "bring your own device" situations in your work. Allowing users to bring their own devices to use at work is great, because you don't have to buy them a new smartphone if they already have one and they get to continue to use something they're already familiar and comfortable with. If you don't properly govern the use of those devices, however, you could be putting sensitive business information in harm's way should those devices ever fall into the wrong hands.

Shadow IT can also extend to employees who use services like Dropbox to share files over the solution that is integrated into your existing IT systems that you've actually provided for them.

What Can You Do About Shadow IT

One of the many ways that you need to start addressing shadow IT involves how you design your business IT systems in the first place. Simply put, you need to stop thinking about things like a developer during IT design and start thinking about them like a user. Your employees aren't favoring services like Dropbox because they're unendingly loyal to them - it's because they're easier to use. So if you want to encourage file sharing in your office, you need to provide them a secure solution that is integrated with your business IT systems that is even easier than Dropbox.

Something like secure FTP would address that issue head on. By providing your employees with a file sharing option that is incredibly easy to use, you get the added benefit of one that is designed to work with your existing architecture that is incredibly easy to maintain, control and secure at the same time.