Actu
How to manage shadow IT for the benefit of business and employees
February 2021 by Alexander Moiseev, Chief Business Officer at Kaspersky
The necessity of remote working during the pandemic made the mixing of corporate and non-corporate web services even more commonplace. Different departments access numerous specific cloud services, while staff often use social media, file sharing, messengers and different SaaS-tools, because it is more convenient. To be precise, it happens in 92% of small and medium-sized businesses and 89% of large corporations, as revealed in Kaspersky’s recent global survey.
While it looks like this current behavior is creating a new norm, a question remains: what should businesses do about shadow IT? Below, Alexander Moiseev, Chief Business Officer at Kaspersky, elaborates on the risks, rewards, and possible solutions to shadow IT.
The mix of corporate and non-corporate web services at work is no longer a question – it is a reality. Different departments access numerous specific cloud services, while staff often use social media, file sharing, messengers and different SaaS-tools, because it is more convenient. To be precise, it happens in 92% of small and medium-sized businesses and 89% of large corporations, as revealed in Kaspersky’s recent global survey[1].
The necessity of remote working during the pandemic made this practice even more commonplace. After switching to home offices, employees were challenged to get things done even if their IT didn’t provide them access to all corporate services. It also blurred the lines between corporate and personal life, so people started using corporate laptops to do things besides work – like playing games, streaming films, or even watching porn.
While it looks like this current behavior is creating a new norm, a question remains: what should businesses do about shadow IT? Let’s elaborate on the risks, rewards, and possible solutions.
The full viewpoint will also go on to discuss:
• Why it’s important to watch out for shadow IT regarding data security.
• Whether shadow IT is inevitable, and why this may mean business’s embrace it.
[1] Kaspersky ‘IT Security Risks Survey 2020’ was conducted in July 2020. There were 5226 respondents surveyed in 31 country globally.
END
