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Shadow IT and the Cloud: European Shadow IT Adopt US Cloud Services
It’s widely believed that US companies are having a hard time making inroads in selling cloud-based products in Europe because of a variety of regulations and privacy laws. But that hasn’t stopped many European businesses from using US cloud services. A report by CipherCloud found that the average European company uses about 80 percent as many cloud services as US companies do. And 70 percent of the US cloud services that are used in Europe are not “Safe Harbour” approved. Actually only 9 percent of cloud services used in Europe are provided by European vendors or have data stored in European-approved facilities. Shadow IT is likely to blame.
Jeroen Blaas, general manager, CipherCloud Europe, said that “in actuality, we’re nearly on par and equally susceptible to the risks that ride into the enterprise on the back of shadow IT. And while European privacy regulations are among the most stringent in the world, these findings reveal that regulations don’t stop shadow IT. So it is up to enterprises to be the enforcers of good security hygiene and to protect against all risks to European privacy laws.”
It’s been known for some time that Shadow IT groups within organizations are by-passing standard IT procurement to directly purchase IT services. Low subscription pricing allows many line of business units to include cloud services in their budgets. A Frost and Sullivan study found that even IT departments engage in Shadow IT at a rate higher than for line-of-business employees.
Shadow IT isn’t unique to Europe. The CipherCloud report estimates that 86 percent of all cloud applications used by enterprises are unsanctioned “Shadow IT”. At one major US business it was discovered that employees were using as many as 70 different file sharing applications.
Pravin Kothari, founder and CEO, CipherCloud, said that the use of Shadow IT cloud applications “introduces a multi-pronged problem for companies. It is hard, if not impossible, to protect against something you cannot see. And worse, each unsanctioned application is a vehicle for introducing a host of other risks into the enterprise. Companies must address this problem in order to fully unleash the power of the cloud.”
