Half of employees use unauthorised file services to complete work

KnowBe4, the provider of the world’s largest security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, today announced a new report from KnowBe4 Research, “Shadow IT Is Real”, which revealed that shadow IT is a real risk for organisations with half of employees using unauthorised file services to complete work.

This research report examines the prevalence of two common insecure practices using survey responses from over 435,000 participants across global regions and industries. The first analysis covers the use of unauthorised cloud services to store information and communicate in the workplace. The second analysis reviews the prevalence of downloading content through unauthorised file sharing networks using work computers. Highlights from the findings include:

• Asia and Oceania are regions with worryingly high rates of both practices, while Africa is consistently the best performing.

• Finance- and technology-based industries are comparatively better than many other industries, while construction-, manufacturing-, educational- and government-based organisations are the poorest performing.

“The findings from this research are very concerning because employees are exhibiting insecure behaviors that are putting their organisations at significant risk,” said Kai Roer, chief research officer, KnowBe4. “The concept of shadow IT has a direct impact on the level of security culture exhibited at an organisation. To combat shadow IT, organisations should focus on strengthening their security culture and increasing employees’ level of security awareness. It is especially important for employees to understand and take responsibility for how their insecure behaviors can ultimately affect the organisation’s reputation and bottom line.”