Information systems developed within a department of the organization rather than by the central IT staff. Also called "stealth IT," shadow IT systems are developed because the IT department is either too busy or not interested in the project.
Shadow IT may also refer to employees selecting their own software applications, especially from a cloud provider (SaaS). The internal IT department is either not aware of the application or does not oversee the software in any manner. See
SaaS sprawl and
SaaS.