TEL AVIV, Israel, July 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — The results of a survey conducted by Perception Point, an Israeli cybersecurity firm whose unique technology prevents file and URL based attacks in any content-exchange channel, found that among enterprise IT decision makers, 80% believe that messaging and team collaboration platforms (Slack, Teams, etc.), enterprise social networks (Yammer, Jive, etc.), shared virtual work spaces (IntraLinks, SharePoint, etc.) and file sharing and syncing apps (Box, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.) are vulnerable to very vulnerable to cyberattacks.

As employees increasingly embrace tools to maximize efficiency and accessibility, enterprise communication and collaboration (EC&C) apps are growing rapidly, with nearly 80% of organizations having between 2 and 10 applications. The survey found that 90% of respondents noted the use of these apps has increased in the last 12 months, while 75% indicated they are investing in more of these apps in the near future.

Companies are directing significant IT budget and resources towards the implementation of these platforms. And yet, these apps create major security blind spots that by and large are going unaddressed. Over 80% of all respondents said that employees in their organizations share files and URLs via shared drives and messaging platforms. However, unlike the email channel, the majority of this content is not being scanned by existing security tools.

The survey found that two-thirds of all companies have already been attacked at least once in the past year, and 78% of respondents said that the level of sophistication of these attacks is increasing. Attackers are using advanced hacking techniques to exploit security gaps and are often bypassing the more fortified access points, such as email.

“The findings of this survey underscore the urgent need that exists for EC&C security solutions,” said Yoram Salinger, CEO of Perception Point. “As more organizations adopt these essential applications, they are inadvertently expanding the number of channels that hackers can leverage to distribute malicious content. Perception Point has developed a security solution that allows CISOs and security experts to stay one step ahead of cyber criminals and take the appropriate precautions before it’s too late.”

The survey also underscores the limited adoption of third-party security enhancements. Only 5% of companies have extended their built-in protection by using outside security vendors. Despite being the target of attacks via these channels, cybersecurity teams remain somewhat behind in fortifying their defenses, in large part due to limited category discussion of the issue.

The survey was conducted among 500 respondents in medium and large enterprises (1000+ employees), across several industries.

About Perception Point.

Email. Shared Drives. Messaging. Any Content Exchange. Perception Point provides unprecedented prevention of APTs, phishing, malware, impersonation and BEC attacks with the speed, scale and flexibility of the cloud. Outperforms any other threat detection on the market.

We stop malicious content (Files & URLs) from infiltrating your organization via any collaboration channel. Unique CPU-level visibility plus deep scanning capabilities detect the unknown attacks like Zero Days and N-days, pre-malware release. In addition, Multi-layered technology combines multiple threat intelligence, image recognition and static engines to prevent phishing and commodity malware.

Our service deploys in one-click, has virtually zero scanning delay, and limitless scale – so your employees can collaborate both securely and seamlessly, wherever they are.

This article first appeared in PRNewswire on July 26, 2018.