Shadow IT is your biggest risk in 2025 – here’s how to spot it early
Shadow IT is your biggest risk in 2025 – here’s how to spot it early
In most organizations, security teams focus on what’s known: the official tools, the approved systems, the assets documented in spreadsheets.
But in 2025, the biggest risks often come from what no one is watching.
That’s the danger of shadow IT — tools, systems, or services used inside your company without formal approval or visibility.
And it’s not just a startup problem. It’s happening everywhere.
What counts as shadow IT?
Shadow IT isn’t just a few unapproved apps. It includes:
- AI tools your team signs up for using a personal email
- SaaS platforms used by marketing or HR without IT’s knowledge
- Cloud environments spun up by devs for a demo — and forgotten
- No-code automations that integrate with your core systems
- Externally hosted spreadsheets or dashboards
These tools often:
- Store company data
- Connect to your main infrastructure
- Operate outside of your monitoring stack
In short: they’re part of your attack surface — whether you track them or not.
Why shadow IT is growing fast
Three trends are driving this explosion:
- Remote work → less central oversight
- Low-barrier SaaS → easy to sign up, hard to track
- AI assistants and integrations → users spinning up workflows at lightning speed
Most of this happens with good intentions — to save time, automate work, or test ideas.
But that doesn’t make it safe.
The real risk: you can’t protect what you don’t know exists
Imagine:
- A third-party contractor using an old tool that still connects to your database
- A file-sharing platform with outdated permissions still exposing data
- A forgotten Airtable or Notion doc storing sensitive internal info
It only takes one exposed tool to open the door.
That’s why asset discovery needs to include shadow IT — not just “official” infrastructure.
How to bring visibility back
Spotting shadow IT doesn’t have to mean micromanagement or bottlenecks.
It starts with awareness and discovery.
What helps:
- Regular external scans of your domains and subdomains
- Detection of new services appearing online
- Alerting when something changes unexpectedly
- Lightweight processes for internal teams to report new tools
What Tresal helps you do
Most tools require heavy setup or assume you already know your asset inventory.
Tresal flips that. We help you discover what’s out there — even if you didn’t know to look for it.
Whether it’s a rogue subdomain, forgotten service, or a public dev environment, Tresal surfaces it before attackers do.
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Matthias
Security Researcher
Security expert specializing in attack surface management and vulnerability detection.
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