Working 9 to 5 is no longer the only way to make a living, and for the foreseeable future, organizations parking most of their employees at a particular desk Monday through Friday is looking less and less likely. Working from home, at least as part of a hybrid organizational structure, is here to stay.
Whether working from home, in a hybrid situation, or back in that old familiar office chair, shadow IT poses a problem. We’ll focus on the working-from-home issues for now.
What is Shadow IT?
Shadow IT comes into the work-from-home picture when employees and/or teams decide to use IT systems, software, devices, applications, or services without the explicit knowledge and/or approval of the organization’s IT department.
Employees using shadow IT to collaborate, or exchange files, are in a sense, "going rogue" in using technology that has not been thoroughly vetted as secure and safe for protecting their organization’s or trading partner’s valuable and sensitive data.
While the intentions behind using technology and devices at will might be good, such as seeking to improve productivity or ease collaboration, shadow IT and its risks lurk around the corner.
Related Reading: What is Shadow IT and Why is it a Problem?
Why Work-From-Home Employees Turn to Shadow IT
Sometimes, it boils down to it just being easier or quicker to use one’s own personal device to access those work documents or organizational network. Private emails or popular file-sharing cloud services are also being employed, even though not approved by the organization when working with data they essentially, “own.”
And while many organizations have already elevated working from home to a more permanent, semi-permanent, or hybrid arrangement, there are some that have yet to fully equip their employees who choose to do so with the devices and applications needed to work from home securely. This leaves employees having to seek out workarounds like using their own laptops, tablets, phones, or even their own personal emails to conduct their day-to-day business and to share files with colleagues and trading partners.
Other reasons WFH employees turn to shadow IT solutions include:
- Thinking more formal processes will slow productivity
- Familiarity with software already used personally
- Wanting to use software compatible with mobile devices
- Reluctance to switch from legacy applications
- Belief that approved applications or systems are harder to work with
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Why is WFH Shadow IT a Problem?
First and foremost, organizations run the costly risk of a data breach. The hit to the bottom line of a preventable data breach is only the beginning. Lost productivity, damaged reputation, and lack of trust of customers and trading partners only add to the ultimate costs of a data breach. Employees may be taking some additional IT risks while working from home and potentially out from under organizational eye. Other potential risks include:
- Compliance issues: When it comes time for an audit in a regulated industry, unapproved solutions or applications may not meet the strict compliance requirements.
- Inconsistent collaboration: Working from home makes easy collaboration a must. However, too many options make it hard to ensure files exchanged are consistent and only accessible to authorized individuals.
- Lack of visibility and control: Without the vetted technology in use, employees using shadow IT for their work from home run the risk of sending information to someone not authorized to access it, and organizations have a lack of visibility into where information lands and what happens to it once it does get to its destination.
- Wasted resources: IT has already invested in technology deemed secure for the organization. The ROI is diminished on this when employees turn instead to shadow IT solutions for the same purpose.
Related Reading: Still WFH? It’s Time to Revisit BYOD, Security and More
When you consider the added risks of oversharing or leaking proprietary information, incoherent or incompatible architecture, accidental loss of information, and even system corruption, the burden of shadow IT use by WFH employees weighs even heavier.
User-Friendly File Sharing Helps WFH Employees Collaborate
One of the bigger shadows cast is from the use of cloud-based file sharing applications like Dropbox, Google Drive, and other popular, user-friendly options. These typically lack the level of security, encryption, and control of a solution such as managed file transfer (MFT).
MFT solutions, such as GoAnywhere MFT, provide a dashboard-style, user-friendly platform to securely exchange files, even those large ones, internally and externally, protecting them both at rest and in transit.
Employees working from home using a robust MFT solution, like GoAnywhere MFT, can send large ad-hoc attachments via a secure email link, collaborate with versioning and commenting, and can even automate file transfer processes to eliminate many of the tedious manual tasks needed for routine file sharing responsibilities.
While employees can certainly be just as productive, if not more so, working from home, organizations employing a robust, enterprise-level MFT solution like GoAnywhere can feel confident that by offering up a user-friendly but secure solution for file sharing they are not hindering productivity, but instead delivering a simplified, integrated and centralized solution to their employees, wherever they may be working from.
