Shadow IT can be managed through solid governance

Shadow IT is a very serious and growing threat to IT compliance and cybersecurity, and most organizations have no idea how common it really is. This article will examine some of the risks of shadow IT and discuss ways in which organizations can curb it.

What Is Shadow IT?

Shadow IT refers to any software, cloud services, or even hardware that employees are using on your enterprise network without the consent or knowledge of your IT department. Prior to the proliferation of cloud computing, it usually involved isolated incidents where individual employees, generally those with at least some degree of technical acumen, would install unauthorized software applications onto their desktop computers.

Then came the cloud, which brought easy access to a dizzying array of free or very low-cost apps to every employee with a computer and an internet connection. These days, shadow IT nearly exclusively refers to the unsanctioned use of SaaS applications and other cloud services, and incidents are no longer isolated; over 80% of respondents to a survey by McAfee admitted to using rogue SaaS applications on the job. In some cases, entire teams or departments are discovered using the same shadow app.

Yet most organizations have no grasp of the scope of shadow IT usage among their employees. Respondents to a Cisco survey of CIOs estimated that their organizations were using an average of 51 cloud services. The actual average was 730.

The Road to Cyber Attacks Is Paved with Good Intentions

Most of the time, employees’ motivations for using shadow IT apps are not malicious or negligent; in their view, they are using tools that allow them to do their jobs better. When asked why they chose shadow apps over enterprise-approved alternatives, respondents to the McAfee survey largely cited productivity reasons.

Unfortunately, despite employees’ best intentions, shadow IT poses serious risks to enterprise cybersecurity and compliance. Shadow apps that haven’t been vetted by the security team may have security or compliance issues that users are unaware of, especially in highly regulated industries such as finance and healthcare or in any organization that must comply with the GDPR. The IT department also has no oversight of the application; they cannot monitor access logs or ensure that regular backups are performed or that important software updates are applied.

Additionally, shadow IT usage is not confined to SaaS applications. Individual employees or groups may set up their own cloud servers and use them to store and process enterprise data, opening up the organization to data breaches and compliance violations.

Tips for Managing Shadow IT

Visibility into shadow IT usage is the first step to controlling it. While discovery of shadow IT apps and services remains a challenge, a number of technical tools have emerged to make the task easier. At MSIgnite 2018, for example, Microsoft announced a number of updates to its Productivity App Discovery Tool in Office 365 to help enterprises identify which shadow IT apps are in use and which employees are using them.

However, effective management of shadow IT usage doesn’t end with deploying a visibility tool. Organizations must develop solid policies and governance that address the security and compliance issues of shadow apps without quashing employee innovation:

• Develop a clear, consistent set of policies on the use of unauthorized apps and services, and make sure your employees understand why these policies are in place. Provide real-world examples of the dangers of using rogue apps.
• Be willing to train new employees on enterprise-approved apps as part of the onboarding process. Many employees who use shadow IT apps do so because of their comfort level with the shadow app; they may have used it at a previous job and are unfamiliar with the enterprise-approved alternative.
• Open the lines of communication with your employees. Keep apprised of the apps they are using to do their jobs, what they like about them, and what they feel could be improved. If enough employees bring up the same issue or complaint, make it a priority to deliver an enterprise-approved solution. In some cases, your organization may wish to work with the shadow app developer to create a version of the software that meets your enterprise’s security and compliance requirements.

The cybersecurity experts at Lazarus Alliance have deep knowledge of the cybersecurity field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting organizations of all sizes from security breaches. Our full-service risk assessment services and Continuum GRC RegTech software will help protect your organization from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber threats.

Lazarus Alliance is proactive cybersecurity®. Call 1-888-896-7580 to discuss your organization’s cybersecurity needs and find out how we can help your organization adhere to cybersecurity regulations, maintain compliance, and secure your systems.

The upcoming NIST Privacy Framework will help enterprises manage privacy risks

Citing the success of its cybersecurity framework and the advent of IoT devices, artificial intelligence, and other technologies that are making it more challenging than ever for enterprises to protect their customers’ privacy, NIST has launched a collaborative project to develop a voluntary privacy framework. The NIST Privacy Framework project will kick off with a public workshop in Austin, Texas, on October 16, 2018. The workshop will also be live-streamed online, recorded, and posted on the NIST Privacy Framework website for future access.

NIST is launching its Privacy Framework project in an environment where consumers are growing increasingly concerned about what data enterprises are collecting from them, what they intend to do with it, and how securely they are storing and handling it. According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), 73% of internet-using U.S. households have data privacy and security concerns, and at least one-third have been deterred from certain online activities due to these fears.

Notably, in a project separate from the NIST Privacy Framework, the NTIA recently published a request for public comment in the Federal Register on a set of data privacy principles to inform a domestic legal and policy approach to consumer data privacy. The NTIA is seeking to develop “a set of user-centric privacy outcomes that underpin the protections that should be produced by any Federal actions on consumer-privacy policy, and a set of high-level goals that describe the outlines of the ecosystem that should be created to provide those protections.”

Stronger Data Privacy Laws Are Coming

The NIST Privacy Framework will be voluntary, but the NTIA’s request for public comment is a preliminary step that could ultimately lead to a federal data privacy law. The development of such a law will be a long and complex process, and whether the end result will amount to an “American GDPR” is debatable. However, one thing is certain: Stronger data privacy laws are coming.

Some states, notably California, have already taken matters into their own hands. The prospect of having to comply with 50 different state laws has softened large organizations’ views towards federal data privacy regulations. At last week’s Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing, representatives from AT&T, Amazon, Twitter, Apple, and Charter Communications stated that they were open to a federal data privacy law, and Google published its own ideas for a data privacy framework prior to the Senate hearing.

The best way for enterprises to prepare for stricter data privacy legislation in the future is to practice proactive cybersecurity and solid data governance, compliance, and risk management now.

The cybersecurity experts at Lazarus Alliance have deep knowledge of the cybersecurity field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting organizations of all sizes from security breaches. Our full-service risk assessment services and Continuum GRC RegTech software will help protect your organization from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber threats.

Lazarus Alliance is proactive cybersecurity®. Call 1-888-896-7580 to discuss your organization’s cybersecurity needs and find out how we can help your organization adhere to cybersecurity regulations, maintain compliance, and secure your systems.

Penetration tests and vulnerability scans are related but different cybersecurity services

The difference between penetration tests and vulnerability scans is a common source of confusion. While both are important tools for cyber risk analysis and are mandated under PCI DSS, HIPAA, and other security standards and frameworks, they are quite different. Let’s examine the similarities and differences between vulnerability scans and penetration tests.

What Is a Penetration Test?

A penetration test, also known as a pen test or a white-hat attack, seeks to simulate the actions of a criminal hacker attempting to break into a network, computer system, or web application, using a targeted approach to see if its security features can be defeated. While penetration tests can be automated to some extent, there is always human involvement somewhere in the process; to meet PCI DSS standards, penetration testing cannot be fully automated, although automated tools and the results of a vulnerability scan can be utilized.

A diligent pen tester does not give up easily. If a pen test is foiled by one defense, the tester adapts and tries another attack vector, just like a cyber criminal would; this is why a human with cybersecurity expertise must be involved. Depending on its scope, penetration testing may also involve simulated real-world attacks such as social engineering schemes or attempts to breach physical defenses and access hardware.

While penetration testing can theoretically be performed on the entire enterprise infrastructure and all applications, due to the time and expertise involved, this is impractical. Generally, pen testing focuses on the network or application level or on a certain department, function, or asset.

What Is a Vulnerability Scan?

Unlike penetration tests, which attempt to break through vulnerabilities, vulnerability scans seek to identify, rank, and report on security vulnerabilities, not break through them. Vulnerability scans are also far broader in scope than pen tests, covering the entire enterprise. They are also fully automated, though a cybersecurity professional must examine the issues identified by the scan and determine how to mitigate them. A scan report will typically prioritize discovered vulnerabilities according to urgency, severity, and ease of fix, as well as offer suggestions on how to make fixes.

Vulnerability scans are performed more often than penetration tests, and because they are automated, they can be scheduled to run automatically. The PCI DSS, for example, requires that organizations perform vulnerability scans at least quarterly, while penetration tests are required at least annually. Both tests should be performed anytime significant changes have been made to the data environment.

The cybersecurity experts at Lazarus Alliance have deep knowledge of the cybersecurity field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting organizations of all sizes from security breaches. Our full-service risk assessment services and Continuum GRC RegTech software will help protect your organization from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber threats.

Lazarus Alliance is proactive cybersecurity®. Call 1-888-896-7580 to discuss your organization’s cybersecurity needs and find out how we can help your organization adhere to cybersecurity regulations, maintain compliance, and secure your systems.