Today’s organizations are embracing messaging and collaboration tools to enhance productivity and connect distributed teams like never before. Just as quickly, cybercriminals are adapting and learning to exploit these new entry points. Instead of just email-based threats, bad actors are now targeting these platforms with attacks like phishing, malware and account takeovers.
To stay ahead of evolving threats, organizations need to protect their messaging and collaboration platforms with the same level of detection efficacy that they use for email. That’s where Proofpoint Collab Protection can help.
The new cyber battleground: messaging and collaboration platforms
It might surprise you to learn that collaboration and messaging platforms don’t have native security capabilities. So, they’re unable to inspect or detect malicious URLs or block phishing attacks. In other words, your people and business are at risk if they use any of these platforms:
- Messaging, like Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat
- Collaboration, like Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom
- Social media, like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X
Cybercriminals exploit this opportunity by using these platforms as launchpads to send a variety of threats. Unfortunately, employees fall prey to these attacks for several reasons.
For starters, employees tend to trust internal collaboration tools more than email because they assume that messages are being sent by verified colleagues. Attackers exploit this trust. Take Microsoft Teams as an example. Bad actors might use Teams to impersonate an executive to direct an employee to use a fraudulent invoice payment portal.
Another issue is that, unlike email, messaging apps also encourage instant responses. Attackers use this to create a sense of urgency, pressuring victims into acting without verifying links or requests. They might ask employees to send payments, share their credentials or click a malicious URL. For example, a threat actor could use Messenger to impersonate the HR department, telling an employee to update their banking information immediately to avoid missing the next pay cycle.
How cybercriminals weaponize messaging and collaboration tools
Here’s what the typical attack chain looks like for messaging or collaboration apps:
Stages in the attack chain for messaging and collaboration apps.
The most prevalent method for delivering payloads is malicious URLs. In the past three years, Proofpoint Threat Research has observed an alarming 2,524% increase in URL threats through SMS-based phishing (smishing). Compare that to threats delivered by email, which went up by only 119%.
With more exposure to risk, companies are more vulnerable to cyberattacks. And the consequences of those attacks can be severe. In 2024, the average cost of a single attack reached $4.88 million, according to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report.
Closing the gaps: how to secure your messaging and collaboration ecosystem
Proofpoint Collab Protection extends phishing protection against malicious URLs delivered via any messaging, collaboration or social media platforms. Powered by our industry-leading Nexus Threat Intel, it provides real-time URL reputation inspection and analysis as well as the ability to block malicious URLs at click-time. As attackers’ tactics evolve, Collab Protection will use more parts of the Nexus detection ensemble over time. This will ensure that your users are protected anywhere, anytime from advanced phishing attacks.
Protect people from malicious URLs
Collab Protection is powered by our industry-leading threat intelligence. It inspects and analyzes the reputation of URLs in real-time, and it can block malicious URLs at click-time.
Here’s how it works. When an employee clicks on a suspicious link that’s shared in a messaging or collaboration app, Collab Protection automatically evaluates how safe the link is. It does this by checking the URL’s reputation in real-time. If the URL is deemed malicious, it automatically blocks access to the URL. This prevents the user from interacting with harmful websites or content. It doesn’t matter if URLs are accessed on a desktop or mobile device.
Collab Protection threat forensics showing threat attributes, affected users and evidence.
Gain multichannel phishing threat visibility
Cybercriminals target your employees across a wide range of digital channels. That’s why security and IT teams need multichannel threat visibility. This helps them to fortify your organization’s defenses against phishing attacks.
Collab Protection provides comprehensive, real-time insights. When an employee clicks on a suspicious link that’s shared through a messaging or collaboration app, it automatically identifies the user who clicked on the URL. What’s more, it pinpoints the device that the URL came from (desktop or mobile) and whether the malicious link was successfully blocked.
Collab Protection also unifies security insights for both email and collaboration apps. When security teams have multichannel phishing threat visibility, they can track and respond to threats faster across multiple platforms. This includes email, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom and even text messages.
Collab Protection holistic view of all messaging and collaboration threat activity within your organization.
Fortify your messaging and collaboration defenses with Proofpoint
To stay ahead of today’s emerging threats, you need the same level of detection accuracy on your messaging and collaboration platforms that you have for email. Because Collab Protection is application-agnostic, your organization can extend phishing protection to any of these apps.
Collab Protection provides real-time URL reputation inspection and analysis that can stop malicious attacks at click-time. This protects your people anywhere, anytime from advanced phishing attacks—and it minimizes the risk to your organization.
To learn more, download the Proofpoint Collab Protection solution brief.