Productivity Suite Security: A New Approach

Productivity suites like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace have transformed workplace collaboration. Today, more than four in 10 organizations use a hybrid workforce, a development made possible by these platforms. While it has given organizations greater flexibility in how work gets done, it has also multiplied the number of vulnerabilities they must protect. Organizations now face the critical need to take a new approach to productivity suite security.

That’s the focus of a new white paper, Securing Human Collaboration: A New Approach to Productivity Suite Security. It examines the threats facing organizations as productivity suites like Microsoft 365 are the primary, and in some cases the only, means of communication in the workplace.

Collaboration is seemingly endless, and users are inundated with a constant influx of communications. Fatigued by emails, alerts, meeting notifications, and instant messages, users are ripe for distraction and vulnerable to exploitation from cybercriminals.

Here are two important themes from the white paper.

Theme #1: the productivity suite has increased the menace of email-borne threats

While email has long served as the top attack vector, it has become more attractive to hackers with the emergence of productivity tools. That’s because email serves as the central source for notifications, alerts, meeting invites, and more. This has not only increased the importance of email, but also changed user behavior in ways that make them more vulnerable to compromise.

Employees now use email as a centralized channel for accessing and completing various tasks within the productivity suite. This includes joining instant messaging threads; accessing, sharing, or downloading files; facilitating meetings; and more. The evolution of email has made users more susceptible to email spoofing attempts and social engineering techniques—before and after an initial compromise.

Productivity suite – Microsoft Outlook smart phone app

Productivity suite – Microsoft Outlook smart phone app

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Theme #2: productivity suite security requires a holistic approach

Most cybersecurity solutions depend on perfect detection to keep organizations protected. That’s because no cybersecurity product can catch 100% of threats, and they don’t provide the tools or capabilities for effective and efficient incident response. As a result, organizations are vulnerable to the most time-sensitive and advanced threats. Productivity suites only increase the risk of compromise.

To protect your teams, you must take a more holistic and collaborative approach to cybersecurity. This begins with prioritizing incident response in your security strategy and acquiring the tools, technology, and visibility to respond with speed and precision. It also calls for adopting advanced threat detection capabilities that leverage machine and human intelligence and leveraging a continuous improvement loop to sustain protection.

This continuous improvement cycle uses human inputs to strengthen technological outputs—and vice versa. It also empowers users as a first line of defense with user awareness training and tools for reporting suspicious emails. Together, this holistic approach enables you to achieve the dynamic, multi-layered security model productivity tools demand.

Protect your greatest asset and vulnerability

Collaboration suites like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace have transformed the way modern teams work. While affording teams greater flexibility, efficiency, and convenience, these tools have created new challenges in cybersecurity.

As the white paper reveals, staying protected requires you to acknowledge this new reality. It also requires rethinking your security strategy and implementing productivity suite security solutions that go beyond traditional measures.

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