Business correspondence in messengers and social networks poses a cyber threat to companies

Experts believe that screenshots of work correspondence sent by company employees to third parties may fall into the hands of fraudsters. Such actions lead not only to reputational and financial risks for companies, but also to the risk of cyber threats.

“If the phone numbers of colleagues are visible in the correspondence, attackers can use this information: for example, for hacking, spam, data mining with the help of social engineering”, says Alexander Tikhonov, general director of the SAS Russia/CIS IT company.

Kaspersky Lab said that the risks of cyber threats for companies became more relevant after the transition to remote work, since office workers began to use shadow IT more often for business correspondence that was not approved by the company.

“Employees are increasingly using personal gadgets, as well as programs installed on them, for personal use for work purposes,” the company explained. Thus, 59% of Russians use personal mail to solve work issues, 55% communicate at work in messengers that are not approved by IT departments, and they admit that with the transition to a remote employment format, they began to do this regularly.

According to AlfaStrakhovanie analytical center, more than 60% of Russians send screenshots of work correspondence in messengers or post them on social networks. Moreover, 43% of respondents said that their company uses one of the standard instant messengers for corporate communication, and 23% responded that their company does not regulate the method of communication at all.

“People tend to think that social networks are not dangerous, that they are surrounded only by friends in the digital space,” said Pavel Adylin, executive director of Artezio. He emphasized that the problem can only be solved by gradually improving the level of literacy and digital security of the business.