shadow IT

English

Noun

shadow IT (uncountable)

1. Software used or deployed without the approval of a central IT department, typically to bypass limitations and restrictions.
   • 2022, Victoria Betton, Towards a Digital Ecology: NHS Digital Adoption through the COVID-19 Looking Glass‎, CRC Press, →ISBN:

     However, there are also many shadow IT systems which might be a spreadsheet or database, and there can be anything up to 800 of those in place at any time. Add into this any number of services secretly buying systems without informing IT departments and it is a big spaghetti mess. One chief information officer (CIO) described trying to manage and reduce shadow IT systems as like playing a game of whack-a-mole—one goes down and another pops up.

Further reading

• shadow IT on Wikipedia.Wikipedia