Forbes Outlines the Risk of the Shadow IT Trend

Article: No. 1 Reason The 'Shadow IT' Trend Is Benefitting Careers But Hampering Companies

Shadow IT refers to the practice of using software or hardware that the IT department of the organization has not approved. As you can imagine, this creates security risks for the organization. I remember the excellent IT team at Twitter would periodically scan our computers for unsanctioned software, and we would have to get approval for any applications or hardware we wanted to use. They encouraged us to "work smarter, not harder", so they would pay for applications and other software if it passed their security requirements and we could demostrate its value to our team. They also provided at no cost to us a TON of tools and hardware to compensate for not being able to use our own systems.

Forbes does a great job outlining how Shadow IT can potentially harm organizations. Many people have no idea about the security risk application, software, and hardware can create. They are almost always not intentionally sabbotaging their company, but simply do not understand the potential harm of their actions.

Moral of the story: While it can be frustrating to wait for approval from the IT team or be restricted from using an application you like, refraining from shadow IT can save your company.