Cybersecurity – Mugato

The dark corners of your IT-infrastructure

Where does shadow IT lure in your infrastructure? Zombie servers and other blind spots waste resources and constitute major risks for your organization. Most IT-infrastructures contain some degree of shadow IT. Learn what measures you can take to maintain a continuous overview of your systems and ensure resilient infrastructure.

Be aware of shadow IT

Shadow IT describes the parts of your IT–infrastructure that are unknown or forgotten – the dark corners of your IT-infrastructure. Think of systems or server clusters that no longer serve a relevant function but remain running in the shadows of your IT–infrastructure.

These dark corners exist in most infrastructures, because IT operations today are dynamic. For most organizations, the infrastructure landscape becomes increasingly complex over time.

Shadow IT is a matter of cybersecurity and organization vulnerability, as the existence of Shadow IT constitutes a risk for your organization.

Issues arise from these dark corners of your infrastructure – system maintenance becomes difficult and vulnerabilities increase, as you lose sight of patching status and security updates.

“Most organizations use an extensive number of IT systems in their daily operations, and technology is moving fast. [It] is a challenging undertaking to maintain an overview of an organization’s dynamic IT landscape while keeping all systems updated, but nonetheless it is vital to cyber security.”

— Centre for Cyber Security. From the investigation report ‘Hackers Remember the Vulnerabilities We Forget’

Kill Zombie Servers

Zombie servers are servers that are running but perform no useful function in your server network. Yet zombie servers – also known as comatose servers – exist as “the living dead” in your IT infrastructure.

The cost of running zombie servers is undeniably a waste of resources.

Identifying and cleaning out existing zombie servers can enable reductions on hardware, maintenance, licenses, and operation costs.

At Mugato, we find that up to 5% of servers are no longer in use and can be decommissioned. Killing zombie servers is a concrete way to optimize operations, save costs, and ensure cyber resilience.

The key to avoid shadow IT

With certain measures you can avoid that shadow IT compromises your organization’s cyber resilience.

The latest investigation report from the Centre for Cyber Security (Center for Cybersikkerhed) provides a list of recommendations for an optimal in-depth defense strategy.

This suggest several security measures – particularly stressing that that patching is key for securing a resilient infrastructure. In other words: “One of the key elements in an efficient cyber defense is to keep your systems updated.”

The report notes that mapping IT infrastructures can seem complex, as the IT landscapes of organizations today evolve rapidly. As new solutions are implemented over time, overview is easily lost.

“ Implementing an IT management system that continuously helps mapping the entire digital infrastructure of the organization may prove useful.”

— Centre for Cyber Security. From the investigation report ‘Hackers Remember the Vulnerabilities We Forget’

Shed light on the dark corners of your infrastructure

Know your IT infrastructure. A continuous mapping of the complete context of your infrastructure helps you maintain an overview of all your systems.
A continuous overview of your infrastructure will reveal any existing shadow IT and help you prevent new dark corners arising.
Kill zombie servers ASAP to optimize your operations, strengthen resilience and reduce costs.