shadow IT

noun

Software used or deployed without the approval of a central IT department, typically to bypass limitations and restrictions.

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Meanings

nounshadow IT (uncountable)
  1. uncountableSoftware used or deployed without the approval of a central IT department, typically to bypass limitations and restrictions.
    1 more example

    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.

    2022, Victoria Betton, Towards a Digital Ecology: NHS Digital Adoption through the COVID-19 Looking Glass, CRC Press, →ISBN
Cite this entry
APA

shadow IT. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shadow%20IT

MLA

“shadow IT.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shadow%20IT. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “shadow IT,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shadow%20IT.

Source: shadow IT on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.