What is Shadow IT? It is technology used within an organisation without explicit approval \u2014 it could be aptly termed as the modern Trojan horse.<\/p>\n
Since these technologies are not IT-approved, they have the potential to allow ransomware and malware to invade an organisation\u2019s network, cause data leaks, and even introduce compliance risks.<\/p>\n
It is critically important to fight back against malware, so here are five easy ways to avoid Shadow IT.<\/p>\n
Part of what makes the threat of Shadow IT so insidious is a common lack of knowledge about the problem.<\/p>\n
More often than not, employees use unsanctioned technology, not for malicious reasons but rather because they are trying to find an intuitive solution for common business tasks.<\/p>\n
If a company\u2019s existing technology solutions fail to address the needs of its employees, they will be forced to look to consumer-facing products.<\/p>\n
It is integral to prevent that from happening, and the response should be twofold:<\/p>\n
It seems like nearly every day there\u2019s a fresh headline about a major cyber-attack on a corporation or government office.<\/p>\n
The most recent local security breach reported was about sensitive information of 30 million South Africans being stolen from the credit bureau.<\/p>\n
And, prior to that, more than six million accounts were at risk when the Ster-Kinekor’s website was hacked.<\/p>\n
It is integral for an organisation to have a strategy for security technology that encompasses the virtualisation of applications, desktops, and networks, as well as the centralisation of data to avoid exposure to risk at endpoints.<\/p>\n
Additionally, layered security and controlled access to mission-critical documents should become a priority.<\/p>\n
To keep employee productivity levels high, organisations need to be able to access critical documents from any device, at any time.<\/p>\n
The modern business world waits for no one, and client expectations for timely delivery of services are on the rise.<\/p>\n
Bring-your-own-device plans should follow secure-by-design protocols that allow for flexibility and mobility while ensuring that sensitive business information remains protected and private.<\/p>\n
Utilising enterprise-level file sharing solutions with consumer-grade UI and UX is one of the best ways to ensure employees remain productive and protected.<\/p>\n
When an organisation’s IT-approved solutions are easy to understand and use, employees will be less likely to turn to Shadow IT.<\/p>\n
Modern businesses cannot work in a vacuum. To be most effective, your data needs to travel \u2013 between employees, contractors, executives, and other stakeholders.<\/p>\n
However, the more your data moves, the more opportunities there are for data loss and theft.<\/p>\n
In recent years, data loss prevention (DLP) solutions have become more robust, taking advantage of new technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and behaviour analytics.<\/p>\n
A scalable DLP suite is a good solution for small to medium businesses because it can grow with your company.<\/p>\n
Information rights management (IRM) is another highly useful tactic IT managers can rein in data when it goes for a walk.<\/p>\n
IRM can apply file-level encryption and authorisation controls, so you can control who has access to sensitive information.<\/p>\n
For instance, documents can be restricted to view-only, view- and print-only, or fully editable.<\/p>\n
Preventing ransomware and malware attacks is nearly impossible.<\/p>\n
Walling off employees within a proxy network and deploying firewalls may prevent unskilled attackers from successfully breaching an organisation, but those solutions aren\u2019t enough anymore.<\/p>\n
Your business needs to be prepared for the worst.<\/p>\n
Investing in responsive strategies is the only way to deal with security breaches as they happen.<\/p>\n
Organisations need to utilise solutions designed to rapidly detect, identify, and respond to cyber-attacks as they happen.<\/p>\n
By Brendan McAravey, Country Manager at\u00a0Citrix<\/span>\u00a0South Africa<\/span><\/i>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is critically important to fight back against malware, so Citrix offers five easy ways to avoid Shadow IT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":220453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[3362,26],"class_list":["post-220423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-citrix","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220423"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220463,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220423\/revisions\/220463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}