Everything You Need to Know to Protect Your Business from Shadow IT

Shadow IT is a big problem in today’s business, but not a lot of people know about it. As powerful as technology can be if it is left unmonitored, it can run into problems. Shadow IT is unmonitored technology because it is brought onto a network without an IT administrator’s knowledge. Today, we talk a little bit about fighting shadow IT and how to get your staff on board.

Shadow IT Is a Big Deal

For a lot of companies, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced their hand to implement new strategies in order to keep operations up and running smoothly. Many of these organizations, who are actively depending on remote workers, are kind of making it up as they go.

This IT administration no-man’s land has led to more problems as companies aren’t able to actively monitor the software and hardware that is being used by their employees. Any unapproved software could potentially become a problem simply because network administrators don’t know it is there. As a result, they don’t know if the software that employees are using is patched or updated properly. Worse yet, most of this software is being used because employees are trying to do their best work. 

How Can Trust Unite IT and Your Users?

Today, with a company’s workforce relegated to their home PCs, endpoint management has become much more important, but some businesses are still managing their computing networks the same way they would if they were in the office. Endpoint management allows IT administrators to manage a company’s shared resources more effectively by allowing for the following remote tasks.

• Remotely locking or wiping a device
• Installing applications and updates
• Access to push messaging services
• Blocking non-business essential features and applications

Here’s How to Properly Manage Your Remote Devices

To take advantage of the endpoint management solutions, there are a few steps the business needs to take. They include: 

1. Take an Complete Inventory: Make a comprehensive list of all the devices that your staff uses for work. This includes software that is owned both by your organization and those owned by your employees. In order to effectively mitigate threats, IT admins need to know what software they need to manage. 
2. Design Access Permissions Based on Roles: Once an inventory is finished, you will want to implement access control to manage account permissions. This can help keep unwanted entities off your business’ computing networks. 
3. Tell Your Team Why It’s Important: Your staff needs to be trained that they need to actively inform IT admins about software they use to ensure that it can be properly managed.

While you do this, you need to encourage communication. Knowing what to expect and how to go about managing everything will help your IT staff secure your network and infrastructure. 

If you have concerns that your remote employees could present risk to your business’ central computing resources or if you need help with any other IT issue, call the experts at SCW at (509) 534-1530.