Shadow IT - To Embrace or Eliminate?

Thought Leadership - 1:55 pm - 2:20 pm

Best practice in most enterprises, at least as far as the CIO and CISO goes, is to squash Shadow IT wherever it is encountered. Shadow IT, the argument goes, leads to a world of data and integration problems for the IT department, and significant amounts of unknown and unquantifiable risk for the information security group. A small but vocal minority however is beginning to advocate for Shadow IT as a catalyst of innovation, citing the increases in productivity and creativity by allowing enterprise staff to find their own out of the box solutions to organizational problems. CISOs can allow their organizations to have their cake (Shadow IT) and eat it too (still be secure) by following a few simple steps that allow them to build in security regardless of user activity.

Takeaways:

Shadow IT is not malicious activity; it is simply the Line of Business user community looking to be efficient and effective
A well-developed security program can take Shadow IT into account and incorporate protection mechanisms that allow end user flexibility
Embracing Shadow IT does not mean no holds barred and end users need to understand the limit of the boundaries and the reason for their existence