KalioTek Blog

Emerging companies today rapidly collect a jumbled basket of cloud applications and services. Employees pull out their credit cards and sign up for all kinds of subscription services in a decentralized and disorganized free for all.  These will soon be upgraded to AI agents performing all manner of functions to make employees more productive.

You’ve got the basics in place for a secure IT environment (modern firewall, encrypted data, endpoint security, single sign-on, endpoint management, solid backups, employee education…) Now what? Are you done?

We were recently contacted by an executive who lost a key team member to a competitor. The immediate concern was whether the employee secretly downloaded critical IP that differentiates their product and should never leave the company. We hear similar scenarios from time to time. It could be a key engineer with access to intellectual property, or a salesperson with access to customer records.

Your startup is coming together with 5 colleagues who are consulting with other companies or moonlighting from their current jobs.  You’re making presentations to investors and interviewing candidates for key founding roles.  It’s an exciting time. You’re all thinking about the product and market opportunity, not about the security of the valuable IP being created. Everyone is using different IT tools – personal consumer email, Dropbox, Office 365, Google Docs, etc. As companies get formed, it is not uncommon for this ad-hoc structure to persist for some time.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an integral tool for many businesses, offering capabilities that streamline operations and improve efficiency. However, with these benefits come significant risks, particularly for companies that rely on proprietary information. Shadow AI refers to the use of AI applications, often without proper oversight, which can lead to the unintentional exposure of sensitive company data and intellectual property.