{"id":4454,"date":"2014-02-19T07:00:57","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T15:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/?p=4454"},"modified":"2014-01-22T10:20:50","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T18:20:50","slug":"technology-it-departments-are-often-the-worst-shadow-it-offenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/technology-it-departments-are-often-the-worst-shadow-it-offenders\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology: IT Departments are Often the Worst Shadow IT Offenders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shadow IT<\/a> refers to technology built or used within an organization without official approval.<\/p>\n

While Shadow IT can often make employees more productive, the flip side is that the use of unapproved IT tools can often lead to security and compliance issues.<\/p>\n

A Frost and Sullivan Stratecast report <\/a>found that Shadow IT isn’t only practiced by employees outside of the IT department. \u00a0Actually, the report found that 91 percent of IT departments are extensively using at least one unapproved SaaS application, and as many as 25 percent of IT departments have using six or more unauthorized applications. \u00a0Nineteen percent of IT staff also say that they personally use six or more SaaS applications that aren’t officially approved by their organization.<\/p>\n

The report notes that “IT professionals themselves are by far the worst offenders when it comes to using unauthorized services. What’s more surprising is that IT holds itself above its own practices.”<\/p>\n

Lynda Stadtmueller<\/a>, cloud program director at Frost and Sullivan, told Network Computing<\/a> that “an IT person may feel more confident in their abilities. It\u2019s very much an attitude of \u2018It\u2019s okay for me … don\u2019t you do it\u2019. \u00a0In reality, that\u2019s probably not true, especially when you have multiple IT people, each with their own specialties, each doing their own thing. It can be pretty risky.”<\/p>\n

One \u00a0main reason why\u00a0Shadow IT<\/em>\u00a0occurs is organizational bureaucracy. \u00a0The Stratecast report identified the following reasons why employees resort to using unapproved technology:<\/p>\n