What Are Shadow Apps?
Shadow apps are third-party applications that users connect to enterprise platforms – like Google Workspace – without security teams or IT’s oversight, approval, or ongoing monitoring. These apps typically gain access through OAuth, allowing them to interact with a user’s Gmail, Drive, Calendar, or Contacts with whatever level of access the user approves.
A shadow app could be as simple as an AI scheduling tool that helps you coordinate meetings in Gmail, or as complex as a project management platform that syncs with your organization’s drive files and employee emails.
Shadow Apps ≠ Shadow IT
While often used interchangeably, shadow apps and shadow IT are NOT the same thing and refer to different concepts:
- Shadow apps (the focal point of this article) are OAuth-connected applications that plug into your existing SaaS environment – like Google Workspace – but are not approved or monitored by your IT or security team.
- Shadow IT, on the other hand, refers to unauthorized hardware, systems, or services – like personal cloud storage or rogue devices – used outside of sanctioned IT infrastructure.
This distinction is critical. Shadow IT is usually visible through network or device logs, while shadow apps are stealthier: they operate via authenticated APIs, often with persistent access tokens, and they don’t require installing any software locally. That makes them harder to detect, but just as (if not more) dangerous!
How Connected Third-Party Apps Access Google Workspace Data
Third-party apps connect to Google Workspace via Oauth, which is a widely used authorization protocol that lets users grant third-party applications access to their accounts without sharing passwords. It’s incredibly convenient, and equally risky when unmanaged.
Here’s how it works:
- A user installs or signs into a third-party app using “Continue with Google.”
- The app presents a list of requested permission scopes, such as access to Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Contacts, etc.
- Once the user clicks "Allow," the app receives a token that grants it ongoing access to those services, often without expiration.
Because OAuth tokens are not tied to a specific device or session, the third-party app can continue accessing data even after the user closes the app or logs out, and in some cases, even after the user leaves the organization, unless access is manually revoked (or done so by a third party SSPM).
This is why OAuth-connected apps present such a huge challenge: they’re deeply embedded, difficult to monitor, and often installed with the best of intentions – yet they can silently exfiltrate data, persist across account changes, and open the door to sophisticated attacks.
Shadow SaaS: Risks and Challenges
There are a number of significant risks that come along with Shadow SaaS, including:
- Security risks
- Compliance risks
- Data privacy and integrity threats
- Integration challenges
- Governance and control challenges
Security risks
IT and IS teams regularly screen third-party apps for trustworthiness, with the app’s policies around data protection and security thoroughly checked. Shadow Apps, however, have never been vetted by your organization, which means that they pose an inherent risk to your business. The use of Shadow Apps by employees creates vulnerabilities which your company is unable to defend against, as you’re not even aware that these data exposure points exist.
Compliance risks
By allowing Shadow Apps access to company data assets, a user may be violating legal safeguards around privacy in your jurisdiction or for your industry. An employee could therefore potentially render your company out of compliance with data protection regulations, simply by granting permissions to Shadow Apps. This issue is especially relevant for companies in highly regulated sectors such as finance and healthcare.
Data privacy and integrity threats
Users may click “allow” when Shadow Apps ask for permissions to connect to Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive, without understanding the gravity of that decision. These apps may obtain full permissions to view all company assets to which the user has access. A random app could obtain viewing, editing, or even deletion permissions for company spreadsheets, slideshows, docs, and other resources that are shared with that employee, putting data privacy and integrity at risk.
Integration challenges
Because IT and IS teams aren’t aware of Shadow Apps or how they impact employees’ workflows, they aren’t taken into account during configuration or infrastructural changes within your organization. If a major change is made to your company’s systems, such as switching cloud providers, Shadow Apps can cause serious issues. Workflows or even critical operations can be disrupted because the transition plan didn’t allocate for the presence or reliance upon these unknown Shadow Apps.
Governance and control challenges
As part of a strong GRC strategy, companies need to know exactly where their data could be exposed and shared. Shadow Apps create a scenario in which your GRC team is unaware of crucial data exposures and vulnerabilities. Businesses can’t execute robust GRC protocols without full knowledge of all the permissions and access privileges granted to every app used by employees.
How Do Shadow Apps Impact Your Organization?
The presence of Shadow Apps can negatively impact your organization in several ways:
- Increased IT complexity
- Potential cost implications
- Impact on data management
- Implications for IT governance
Increased IT Complexity
Shadow Apps form a parallel system of SaaS solutions being used by your employees. This in and of itself is inherently problematic, as it means your organization doesn’t have an accurate understanding of the solutions used regularly within the business.
Without a complete understanding of the apps used by employees on a daily basis, your IT teams can’t formulate effective policies or plan for transitions to new or alternative systems.
Potential Cost Implications
Shadow SaaS can result in significant financial issues for your organization. If you’re found to be out of compliance with data protection regulations due to unvetted third-party apps, you could face stiff penalties that may even cost you millions of dollars.
That’s not to mention that some third-party apps work on subscription models. Employees could theoretically be billing your organization for these apps, charging them as expenses, with your IT team none the wiser.
Impact on Data Management
Effective data management requires an in-depth understanding of all potential vulnerability and exposure points. With Shadow Apps in play, your teams can’t ensure the safety of all your sensitive data because they’re unaware of all the apps where it’s accessible.
Implications for IT Governance
Key governance issues, like access policies and periodic permissions reviews, are impossible to manage when there’s Shadow Apps used by employees. Governance teams can’t conduct systematic analysis and review of permissions and access when there is data being shared within apps that aren’t on their radar.
Why Most Shadow Apps Are Hard to Detect
One of the most dangerous aspects of shadow apps is their invisibility. They don't show up in device logs, don't require installations, and don't generate traditional red flags.
Here’s why detecting them is so challenging in Google Workspace:
1. OAuth Grants Are Silent and Persistent
When a user authorizes an app, there’s often no alert sent to IT. The app may remain connected indefinitely – quietly reading emails, syncing files, or pulling calendar events.
Unless an admin manually audits app access or you are using a third party SSPM vendor, these connections go undetected and the data stays at risk.
2. Google Admin Console Limitations
While Google’s native Admin Console provides basic tools for app management, Google Enterprise falls short in protecting against shadow apps. It requires significant manual effort from security teams to monitor and control OAuth-connected apps, and still lacks several critical capabilities:
- No automatic alerts for new third-party app connections
- No centralized view of connected apps across users
- No risk scoring or behavior-based anomaly detection to flag suspicious activity
3. End-User Discretion Drives Risk
Most employees don’t fully understand what permissions they’re granting. OAuth prompts can be misleading (by design), with vague scope descriptions like “view and manage your email” – which actually means read, send, delete, and forward.
User behavior in Google Workspace plays a big part in how secure an organization is. In most cases, user behavior negatively impacts Google Workspace security. Most employees are negligent – meaning they don’t mean to put company data at risk, but they simply are just unaware of the right procedures and safeguards.
4. No Endpoint or Network Signals
Because OAuth interactions happen at the API layer and are often SaaS driven, they bypass traditional endpoint protection tools, firewalls, and network monitoring solutions. That makes traditional security stacks blind to shadow apps.
Even the most mature security programs often overlook this layer, creating a blind spot that can be exploited over time. This is why a dedicated SSPM is usually needed to protect environments.
Key Strategies and Best Practices for Managing Shadow SaaS
In order to minimize the presence of Shadow Apps within your business and/or reduce the threat that they pose, we suggest taking the following actions:
- Establish a SaaS governance framework
- Promote awareness and education
- Encourage open communication
- Implement Shadow SaaS monitoring and detection tools
Establish a SaaS governance framework
Create a clear framework that establishes and implements rules regarding SaaS app permissions and access. Include policies that designate what’s appropriate when it comes to third-party apps, such as banning the use or integration of solutions that haven’t been pre-screened by your organization.
Promote awareness and education
Employees are often unaware of the serious security ramifications of using Shadow Apps. Training your people on why it’s critical they only use apps vetted by your IT and IS teams can help decrease the risks of Shadow SaaS use. The most effective education is that which is integrated into the workflow, such as a message that pops up for a user trying to install an unapproved third-party app, explaining the problem and what they should do in the future.
Encourage open communication
Shaming or punishing employees who have installed apps without clearing them with your security team is the wrong move. Instead, focus on fostering a company culture in which employees who have installed Shadow SaaS - whether through ignorance or negligence - are encouraged to provide that information to your security and IT teams, without fear of reprisals.
Implement Shadow SaaS monitoring and detection tools
Staying on top of Shadow SaaS is a challenge; by their very nature, your IT and IS teams are unaware of the presence of these apps. Manually monitoring your SaaS environment to pick out apps that shouldn’t be there is impractical, if not impossible.
Look for automated solutions that can stay on top of what’s going on with your third-party SaaS apps. Such a solution should be able to automatically detect the installation and use of unapproved apps by employees. It should be able to send notifications and alerts to your IT and IS teams.
Ideally, a SaaS Security Platform should be able to not only detect and alert, but to remediate any Shadow SaaS problem with an automated workflow. Finding the right Shadow SaaS management solution is key for keeping your sensitive information safe and secure.
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