Are Employees Putting Organizations at Risk?

According to a recent report released by Forrester Research, the global public cloud market is expected to hit $191 billion by 2020, based on Forrester's last forecast (published in 2011), this represents a 20% increase over the same time period. It also represents a significant increase from where the market is currently, Forrester estimates that the market was public cloud market was $58 billion at the end of 2013.

However, the challenge facing enterprises with cloud adoption is quite concerning. According a recent article published by Computerworld, "There's a tug-of-war tension in the enterprise right now," said Gartner analyst Lydia Leong. "IT administrators very rarely voluntarily want to go with the public cloud. I call this the 'turkeys don't vote for thanksgiving' theory. The people who are pushing for these services are not IT operations people but business people."

There is no doubt that the business owner is making this selection to drive their business and sees little to no risk with their decision. However, IT security and the lack of oversight, digital loss prevention techniques and audit requirements can leave a company in precarious situation.

The question is, how does IT and the business user coexist as a partners and not as roadblocks to business growth? The key is a common product and sales technique. Understanding the business requirements is critical to forming the right partnership. IT needs to focus on delivering products that help the business become more efficient and meet their needs to facilitate business. The business needs to be the buyer, but IT needs to be there to make sure the corporation remains well protected.

One of the very real risks that corporations are facing today is cloud based file sharing, the reality is that these applications can be acquired very easily by the business, unfortunately, there is no way to control what is actually being store outside the firewall or if the service provider even meets corporate standards. Many companies have blocked the most popular URLs to prevent internal use, but Gartner lists over 100+ competitors, many approaching file sharing from a different industry focus, so it is unrealistic to expect an IT department to be able to prevent all files sharing solutions.

This is just one example of the risk that the business faces when they acquire technology without going through the correct process. But IT must also understand, they are not the business, nor must they decided what is best for the business, rather they must learn to deliver the business requirements, while ensuring that the product or service meets with the Corporate Security Standards. Only then wll the risk of Rouge IT applications subside!