Shadow IT

Shadow IT refers to the use of applications or cloud services, within an organization without the explicit approval or knowledge of the IT department. This unmanaged adoption of applications or services can cause risks to data security, compliance, and governance.

Josys offers powerful features to help you manage Shadow IT and regain control over your IT infrastructure.

Shadow IT typically arises in a few common scenarios:

• Unsanctioned Application Use: Employees install and use software programs or cloud services that are not officially approved or provisioned by IT. This may be to fulfill a specific business need or job function.
• Unauthorized User Access: Former employees, contractors, or current staff utilize accounts, credentials, or subscription licenses to access corporate systems and data without proper permissions from IT.

Note: Users associated with the discovered apps are displayed as unauthorized users.

How Josys handles Shadow IT

Josys provides robust capabilities to discover, monitor, and mitigate shadow IT risks within an organization, offering comprehensive features to manage Shadow IT and take necessary actions to identify the Shadow IT.

Types of Shadow IT 

• Unmanaged Applications

  • Detection by Josys Browser Extension: The Josys Browser Extension installed on Google Chrome/Microsoft Edge browsers detects application usage by monitoring employees based on the URL-based browsing and login history. See Josys Browser Extension for more information.
  • Detection by Google Audit Logs: Integration with Google Workspace detects SaaS and web services usage from the audit logs (data is collected from 20 days past integration date).
  • Detection by Microsoft 365 (Azure AD): Integration with Microsoft 365 (Azure AD) detects SaaS apps (data is collected from 20 days past integration date).
  • Unmanaged apps used across the organization are listed in the "Discovered Apps" section.

• Unauthorized User Access

  • The "Managed Apps" section shows details of the Integrated Apps and the Tracked Apps. Shadow Users are typically associated with the Integrated Apps. You can fetch the details of such shadow users from the integrated apps and perform necessary action on each of those users
  • The "User Profiles" section shows unauthorized user accounts without proper access permissions during the app discovery, in addition to other authorized users. 

Managing Shadow IT

• Unmanaged Applications

After discovering and identifying Unmanaged Applications, the IT Admin evaluates the risks associated with the apps, adheres to the compliance regulatory standards, and takes either of the following actions through Managing Discovered Apps.

• Integrate the app to monitor the user account details.
• Track the app to monitor the app expenses.

• Unauthorized Users

After discovering and identifying Unauthorized Users, the IT Admin can take either of the following actions through Managing Shadow Users:

• Convert unauthorized users to properly managed, provisioned accounts.
• Revoke access from former employees, contractors, or unauthorized accounts.