An increasingly prevalent trend throughout corporate America is employee use of personal cloud applications in the workplace. This is not surprising since personal cloud applications like Dropbox and Google Drive have tremendous functionality. They simplify data sharing and teamwork among employees while providing seamless storage options that obviate traditional network storage.
Despite such benefits, personal cloud applications pose a serious threat to organizations’ trade secrets and proprietary information. This is particularly the case with shadow use of personal clouds. Such a scenario involves employees who use cloud applications at work in violation of company policy or without express approval. While many employees use Dropbox and Google Drive to facilitate their work, others do so furtively to sabotage the company or to gain a competitive advantage after leaving the enterprise.
