Shadow IT Expanding Within Federal IT Environments
August 07, 2015

Joel Dolisy
SolarWinds

Share this

Shadow IT and mobile device use continues to expand within federal IT environments, while some IT pros lack control and confidence in their ability to manage the accompanying security risks, according to a SolarWinds survey on the current state of government IT management and monitoring. The survey also found that adoption and benefits of IT shared services are overcoming organizational resistance.

Not Enough Leadership Focus on Shadow IT

While only 12 percent of respondents indicated that shadow IT — when IT systems and solutions are built and used inside organizations without explicit organizational approval — is an area of high importance and leadership focus in their agency, nearly six in ten (58%) expect the use of shadow IT to increase in the next two years.

■ Shadow IT ranked second among areas that IT departments have least control over in terms of management and monitoring

■ Only 13 percent of respondents are very confident in their ability to protect against the negative consequences of shadow IT

■ A majority of respondents (71%) indicate that security consequences are the biggest issue with shadow IT, followed by duplication of IT efforts (50%), lack of interoperability (37%) and lack of adequate performance monitoring (36%)

■ Organizations using management and monitoring tools are significantly more confident than those who do not in their ability to protect against the negative consequences of shadow IT

Low Confidence in Data Protection Persists

Thirty-six percent of respondents indicate that only agency-owned mobile devices are allowed to access to their systems, but 80 percent of respondents still believe that mobile devices pose a threat to their agency’s security and 35 percent don’t provide security training for mobile device users.

■ Only 25 percent of respondents are very confident in their agency’s ability to effectively protect their organization’s data

■ The majority of respondents utilize data encryption (65%), firewall rule audits (60%), mobile device wiping (55%), mobile application inventory and authorization (52%), and two-factor authentication to secure mobile devices (52%), but at least 35 percent of respondent haven’t fully implemented any of these solutions

■ Respondents indicated that securing both the application and the device (43%) was the most challenging aspect of mobile technology security followed by ensuring devices are not infected by malware (37%) and that data is not accessed by unauthorized users (36%)

IT Shared Services Gain Traction and Deliver Benefits

Despite perceived concerns that IT shared services would compromise security, performance and control, more than half of respondents see them as beneficial to all agency stakeholders, including IT department personnel, end users, agency leadership and citizens/constituents .

■ Respondents rated the key benefits of shared services as saving money by eliminating duplication (60%), achieving economies of scale (54%) and standardized IT services for consistent performance (52%)

■ More than 80 percent believe that either an internal shared services model or an outsourced private partnership is most likely to provide superior customer service versus no shared services

■ The biggest widespread adoption barriers for shared services include cultural resistance to change (56%), perceived decreased flexibility (37%) and lack of executive buy-in (37%)

Fully securing a federal IT environment will undoubtedly remain a key concern for IT pros, and as control issues creep in with shadow IT and the mass adoption of mobile devices, security is brought to the management forefront. Agency leaders must not only provide their IT pros with the right tools to maintain control and security of their infrastructure, but remain flexible in considering operational and organizational changes like IT shared services that can help institute agency-wide security protocols and more.

“SolarWinds’ study provides detailed insight into how federal IT pros are adapting, managing and assuring oversight as shadow IT, mobile technology and shared services continue to grow in their environments,” concludes Laurie Morrow, Director of Research Services, Market Connections, Inc. “This research reinforces that fully implementing multiple management, monitoring and security tools provides significantly more control and confidence throughout IT organizations in the wake of this change.”

Joel Dolisy is CIO and CTO at SolarWinds.

Share this

The Latest

November 21, 2024

Broad proliferation of cloud infrastructure combined with continued support for remote workers is driving increased complexity and visibility challenges for network operations teams, according to new research conducted by Dimensional Research and sponsored by Broadcom ...

November 20, 2024

New research from ServiceNow and ThoughtLab reveals that less than 30% of banks feel their transformation efforts are meeting evolving customer digital needs. Additionally, 52% say they must revamp their strategy to counter competition from outside the sector. Adapting to these challenges isn't just about staying competitive — it's about staying in business ...

November 19, 2024

Leaders in the financial services sector are bullish on AI, with 95% of business and IT decision makers saying that AI is a top C-Suite priority, and 96% of respondents believing it provides their business a competitive advantage, according to Riverbed's Global AI and Digital Experience Survey ...

November 18, 2024

SLOs have long been a staple for DevOps teams to monitor the health of their applications and infrastructure ... Now, as digital trends have shifted, more and more teams are looking to adapt this model for the mobile environment. This, however, is not without its challenges ...

November 14, 2024

Modernizing IT infrastructure has become essential for organizations striving to remain competitive. This modernization extends beyond merely upgrading hardware or software; it involves strategically leveraging new technologies like AI and cloud computing to enhance operational efficiency, increase data accessibility, and improve the end-user experience ...

November 13, 2024

AI sure grew fast in popularity, but are AI apps any good? ... If companies are going to keep integrating AI applications into their tech stack at the rate they are, then they need to be aware of AI's limitations. More importantly, they need to evolve their testing regiment ...

November 12, 2024

If you were lucky, you found out about the massive CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage last July by reading about it over coffee. Those less fortunate were awoken hours earlier by frantic calls from work ... Whether you were directly affected or not, there's an important lesson: all organizations should be conducting in-depth reviews of testing and change management ...

November 08, 2024

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 11, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) ...

November 07, 2024

On average, only 48% of digital initiatives enterprise-wide meet or exceed their business outcome targets according to Gartner's annual global survey of CIOs and technology executives ...

November 06, 2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping industries around the world. From optimizing business processes to unlocking new levels of innovation, AI is a critical driver of success for modern enterprises. As a result, business leaders — from DevOps engineers to CTOs — are under pressure to incorporate AI into their workflows to stay competitive. But the question isn't whether AI should be adopted — it's how ...