Shadow IT risks heightened in hybrid cloud

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Tom Nolle.

While there are many advantages to cloud computing, there are also drawbacks, including shadow IT. Driven by cloud’s low-cost, as a service model, shadow IT shifts traditional IT and CIO functions to a business’s line departments. And while shadow IT risks have been discussed before, a new risk is emerging, specifically within hybrid clouds.

To many companies, shadow IT is a way of decoupling a business’s response to a problem or opportunity from a high-inertia IT world. A line department buys compute services from a cloud provider, and adjusts the services to fit business needs. The shadow IT model may not work for every application, but it works well for at least some applications in every enterprise — and it’s only going to expand as cloud adoption grows…

However, shadow IT risks are heightened when combined with hybrid cloud. Most companies have data security and compliance practices to protect not only their own information, but that of their customers and suppliers. These practices and policies assume that data is contained within a controlled environment. But if users create a hybrid cloud workflow that connects shadow IT software as a service (SaaS) applications to highly structured applications, they can violate security and governance requirements – a risk known as bandit hybridization…

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