The Death of Shadow IT and The Standardization of Remote Work Practices

By Michael Abboud, CEO and Founder of TetherView

It's official, 2020 has made remote work the new normal. According to Gartner Research's recent report on Remote Work, over 48% of employees will continue to work remotely post COVID-19. For business leaders, this shift to remote work has created new challenges for IT departments, who are struggling to balance the demands of workers with a clear need to protect valuable corporate data and infrastructure. This is a complex issue that has led to the rise of major problems that will shape the face of enterprise security in 2021. With this in mind, I've put together my top enterprise security trends and predictions for 2021.

The Dangers of Shadow IT

COVID-19 has forced IT departments to adopt new technologies in order to address the needs of a new remote workforce. This has both benefits and drawbacks; on one hand, IT teams have rapidly modernized. However, worker behaviors and demands for ease of access to corporate data have caused a dramatic and alarming increase and acceptance of Shadow IT; ie applications and devices, largely SaaS, that employees set up and use without IT permission or Corporate controls

From browser-based plugins to unsecured devices, Shadow IT represents one of the biggest potential vulnerabilities in IT today, and it is my belief that the data breaches that will occur in 2021 as a result of these practices will serve as a wake-up call to the enterprise community.

The SolarWinds hack is just the tip of the iceberg; 2021 will be the year that the true threat of  Shadow IT practices is shown.

My 2021 Prediction: Unless IT departments give users access to the proper tools and training, Shadow IT will lead to major data breaches over the next year.

The Race to Cloud and The Dangers of Too Much Data

The rapid growth within the SAAS cloud ecosystem has been largely driven by the idea that data should be easily accessible. Platforms such as Salesforce have played a major role in building unified ecosystems that empower teams to work remotely. As demand has grown for new features, specialized third-party solutions have emerged in order to address specific user features. However, many of these applications rely on browser-based plugins that are insecure in nature. An even bigger issue is that many home workers may have third party extensions installed on their browser without even knowing it. This poses a huge challenge for IT teams tasked with keeping business data secure, and for companies dealing with sensitive information or compliance requirements,  the "open data" approach offered by traditional browser-based SAAS platforms do not work.

My 2021 Prediction: As security researchers begin to examine third-party SAAS extensions, we will begin to see major vulnerabilities emerge. We will see the major SAAS providers crackdown on third-party extensions and platforms as a result of this.

The Struggle of Midsize Businesses and Municipalities to Address Security Concerns

For medium-sized businesses and municipalities looking to simply stay afloat during COVID 19, staying ahead of new evolving threats poses a huge challenge. Keeping up with Zero-Day vulnerabilities, and updating existing technology stacks can be a huge challenge, and current off the shelf solutions will not fix this issue. For hackers, municipalities are an especially enticing target. According to Kaspersky ICS CERT " The online presence of municipal services and utilities and the increased digitization of government and public services will make them more vulnerable to attacks of cybercriminals and create more opportunities for cross-agency attacks and assaults on central and local government functions and the systems that support and implement them." For municipal IT departments,  2021 will be an incredibly challenging year as threats from external actors increase.

My 2021 Prediction: Outside actors will increasingly target midsize businesses and regional municipalities. There will be a new generation of service providers aiming to holistically address these market segments.

Internal Threats, An Even Bigger Challenge

Increasingly, cybersecurity risks related to insiders are now more common than external threat actors. Findings from the 2020 Netwrix Cyber Threats Report reveals that since going remote, four of the top six types of cybersecurity incidents reported by organizations were caused by internal users. These include:

• Accidental mistakes by admins (suffered by 27% of respondents)
• Accidental improper sharing of data by employees (26%)
• Misconfiguration of cloud services (16%)
• Data theft by employees (14%)

Perhaps most alarmingly, the same study reveals that of the organizations surveyed, more than half (54%) admitted that they do not review user access rights to data on a regular basis. This security blind spot poses an incredible risk for businesses and showcases the important role that IT teams must play in limiting who, what, where, and when corporate data is being accessed. Unless businesses take this seriously, 2021 will see an increase in major data breaches as a result of employee data mismanagement

My 2021 Prediction: Businesses will increasingly have to limit and track employee data access as a result of major internal data breaches.

The Major Players Will Increasingly Embrace Virtual Desktops

Employee demand for access to familiar and new solutions for communication and task management applications will force businesses to seek out comprehensive deployment solutions. Already, we see Microsoft, Google, and Amazon all bringing their workspace solutions to market. However, getting multiple departments all using the same tools is a challenge, especially as many firms utilize a variety of different applications and platforms. There are also major concerns around vendor lock-in and flexibility. It's no secret that the first virtual desktop deployments had major issues. However, security features, technology, and connectivity have greatly improved, and it is my belief that businesses will increasingly turn to Virtual Desktop solutions. 

My 2021 Prediction: 2021 Will be a banner year for virtual desktop adoption. Major players such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and even Salesforce will look to offer their own workspace solutions.

About the Author

Michael Abboud is CEO and Founder of TetherView, a leading private cloud provider based in Oceanport, New Jersey. TetherView is an IT solution company that builds secure, compliant, resilient business Infrastructure created in private clouds assuring business continuity and disaster recovery.