Shadow Cloud Is Risky Business for SMBs

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Sue Poremba.

Employees who bypass company-approved technologies to use shadow cloud services are putting the overall company and network at risk for more data breaches, compliance failures and a loss of integrity during business transactions, according to a new warning from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Increasing Risks

Shadow IT situations, in which employees use any technology that has not been approved by the company, have been creating problems for a long time. By instituting policies surrounding the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement, IT departments have been able to rein in some shadow IT problems. However, as cloud computing continues to gain popularity and more employees use the cloud on their personal devices, shadow cloud has added a new level of risk…

“[Shadow cloud] is harder to find, because it is being procured at small cost and is no longer operating within the bounds of the company,” Cara Beston, cloud risk assurance leader at PwC, says in Computerworld. The PwC report also adds that shadow cloud use can increase overall operating costs, in part due to the additional security and compliance risks…

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