Shadow IT have many potential risks that can have an impact on organizations. These Five recommendations are that an organization can consider to prevent Shadow IT.
- Awareness: Communication is a key to prevent shadow IT and there needs to be communication on the policies and solutions that a company offers, as well as business units should be educated with the policies and processes. When there is a new policy in place and communication is on point if any business units or employees face a security event they would be having a structured approach and they would know what will it lead to and the intimation will be made aware to the IT and the process would be effective.
- Strong IT Team: Organizations to enable the purchasing ability of business units by having a strong updated IT team which can give guidance to them in purchasing the right service or choosing the right vendors. With this, it would be a great help for the business owners and IT to decide as well as to take a swift purchasing decision about vendors, where IT will be updated on the services which have been purchased and will not end up duplicating the purchases. This will also create a great bond between IT and the Other business units.
- Streamlined Process: IT departments should reconsider in designing and streamlining the approval process of applications inside an organization. If there is a streamlined process the IT will be able to deliver the solutions swiftly and the business units need not wait too long for approval from the IT departments. This will also help in increasing the number of applications that are approved for usage by employees. A speedy approval process allows for the ability for employees to look at the IT department as a tool for helping them use applications, instead of a deterrence.
- Inclusive Policies: Organisation needs to create a policy to include new applications instead excluding.IT team should be open in exploring new IT services and should be included in their approved application, so the employees will be more comfortable and when there is a security event they will immediately update it to IT with this approach we can prevent shadow IT with the support and awareness. By having an inclusive of these new applications, the IT department will be able to recognize the risk of using all the additional applications and create plans on how to handle security events that are to arise.
- Continuous Monitoring: Organizations to implement software to help IT department to monitor and identifying the unapproved application and helps in prevent Shadow IT. This way it helps automate the discovery process by monitoring the network and be able to identify the unapproved applications and understand the risks. The software informs the IT team about the unapproved application and helps in preventing the Shadow IT.
