It is no secret that cybersecurity, 
data breach, and phishing attacks against corporations and law firms have increased over the past several years. Barely a day goes by without news of a “hack” or loss of customer data. Last year a client sued his firm for failing to adequately secure his data. Also within the past few months, the SEC announced charges against three men who were using information hacked from M&A firms in New York to short stocks.

In response to these types of events, organizations have hired Chief Information Security Officers, performed penetration tests, and focused significant resources on hardening their computer systems. All of these protections can be undone, and bring new legal challenges, by a single employee deploying their own technology “solutions” without IT's knowledge or approval.

Shadow IT or stealth IT are terms used to describe deployments of information technology hardware or software without consulting or working with the enterprise IT organization. Whether the employee is well meaning, trying to help address what they consider technology deficits or simply impatient with IT's timelines, employees rarely understand the regulatory and compliance requirements of sensitive identifying information (SII) or personally identifying information (PII). The growth of cloud solutions including Software as a Service (SaaS) makes it easier and easier to bypass the IT group all together.