HOW SAAS MANAGEMENT IMPACTS IT AND SECURITY
Not long ago, shadow IT was thought of as employees bringing their own devices to work: smartphones, laptops, or unsanctioned and unmanaged wireless access points. While staff using their own hardware is still a big challenge, enterprises face a far riskier form of rogue user behavior thanks to the popularity of SaaS applications.
Today, shadow IT is just as likely to manifest itself when departments or individual employees subscribe to a service they view as essential to their productivity. This places access to potentially sensitive enterprise data on any machine with a web browser.
“Staff will often think that they have a task they need to complete, and they need a software application to do it,” says David Elfering, senior director of information security at ReSource Pro.
SaaS applications will continue to grow in popularity and will often come with a heavy price when it comes to data security and regulatory risks. Fortunately, a mature security program that takes the steps necessary to manage SaaS-related risks and supported SaaS management applications can go a long way to mitigating these risks.
