In today’s hyper-connected world, modern workers rely on a multitude of communication and collaboration tools to get work done efficiently. Email, SMS, Slack, Microsoft Teams – the average employee juggles between 6-10 sanctioned apps on any given day. And that’s not even counting the unsanctioned tools that fly under IT’s radar. This proliferation of channels has unlocked incredible productivity gains. But it has also opened up a gaping security blindspot that attackers are exploiting at an alarming rate.

A recent study by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) reveals that over 50% of organizations now face multi-vector, socially engineered attacks on a weekly or even daily basis. These attacks leverage multiple communication channels simultaneously to bypass traditional security controls and evade detection. Think about it – your secure email gateway can detect and block a malicious link in an email. But what if that same malicious link is sent via SMS or posted in a Slack channel? Suddenly it slips through undetected, leaving your users vulnerable to compromise. As ESG Principal Analyst Dave Gruber puts it, “Traditional siloed security strategies are failing to scale and protect the array of tools in use by most modern workers, leaving organizations with gaps, inconsistent controls, and exposure in the form of both data leakage and system compromise.”

To make matters worse, the rise of AI cyber tools like WormGPT is giving attackers powerful new capabilities. These Gen AI tools allow them to rapidly generate deceptively realistic content at scale across multiple channels, easily fooling even cyber-aware employees. The NSA itself has warned that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for humans to distinguish AI-generated text from something written by a real person. This AI augmentation threatens to overwhelm traditional security awareness training.

The writing is on the wall – siloed, channel-specific security tools are no longer sufficient in this multi-channel world. Organizations need an integrated solution that can protect against multi-vector attacks. They need AI-driven security that can understand context across channels and stop threats earlier in the attack chain – whether it’s SMS spear phishing, business email compromise, or malicious links in apps such as Team, WhatsApp, and personal Gmail.

Enterprise Strategy Group recommends that security teams explore comprehensive platforms like SlashNext that are purpose-built for this multi-channel reality. SlashNext uses advanced AI to provide:

• Complete multi-channel threat detection across email, mobile, and web.
• Integrated defenses against BEC, advanced phishing, smishing, credential theft, and zero-hour threats.
• Unified security policies and centralized management across all communication channels.

Take action to close your blindspot. Eighty-three percent of organizations surveyed said securing their communication and collaboration channels is a high or top priority over the next 12-18 months. If you’re among them, the time to act is now. Contact SlashNext and we’ll show you how to regain full visibility and control across all your communication channels – eliminating the blindspots attackers are actively exploiting.

Don’t leave your organization vulnerable to the next multi-vector attack. Read more in the ESG Report: Prolific Adoption of Multi-channel Communication and Collaboration Tools Leaves Organizations Exposed.

To start closing your multi-channel security gap, reach out to SlashNext today.