For the billions of items of addressed mail sent by businesses every year, the rising cyber threat aligned with radically shifting remote and hybrid work patterns poses multiple threats, says Citipost Mail.
Cyber security remains a hot topic in 2022, with businesses cracking down on ransomware threats. Lindy Cameron, head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), placed ransomware attacks as “the most immediate danger” to the UK.
For the billions of items of addressed mail sent by businesses every year, the rising cyber threat aligned with radically shifting remote and hybrid work patterns poses multiple threats.
The 2021 HP Wolf Security Out of Sight Out of Mind Report highlighted the breadth and diversity of potential security threats. It draws on data from a global YouGov survey of 8,443 office workers who had shifted to home working. Using a Toluna survey of 1,100 IT decision-makers (ITDMS), the report examines workplace transformation and its impact on the manageability of IT security.
The report highlighted some alarming behavioural trends from home workers. It concluded that 70% had clicked on suspicious links without reporting it to IT. In the UK, 83% of ITDMS had seen a rise in employees opening malicious links or attachments.
Business mail is a ticking time bomb
John Sinclair, corporate communications specialist at Protāgo, says: “Crucially, there is often one data breach risk slipping under the radar.” Protāgo is the corporate hybrid mail arm of one of the UK’s leading independent mail companies, Citipost Mail.
John explains, “The lack of protocol for sending business mail is a ticking time bomb, particularly in the financial and insurance sectors. Millions of communications and the associated personal data are being sent to external printers every week. In many cases, they are shared again with external mail fulfilment companies.
“As robust as an organisation’s online security protocols are, as soon as you share data with an external company in your supply chain it opens up a world of risk. Using standard external print and mail processes, your data may go through two or even three third parties before reaching the final recipient.
“The fact is that most organisations wouldn’t know what the data trail looks like or what happens to that data post-implementation. It really is the hidden data threat that many organisations haven’t even considered.”
The awareness of the data threat has seen a significant rise in organisations investing in a Chief Data Office (CDO) role. Last year, New Vantage Partners Big Data and AI Survey found that 65% of leading companies claim to have appointed a CDO compared to just 12% less than ten years ago.
“We developed Protāgo as the only solution in the UK guaranteed to manage the whole mail process in one secure environment from internal data to print and mail fulfilment,” concludes John. “We want to raise awareness and are offering companies the opportunity to work with our data and mail experts on a free transactional mail data audit to identify and prevent risk.”
To find out more, visit https://protago.io/ or email [email protected]
Protāgo is part of the Citipost Mail Group, one of the UK’s largest independent mail companies. The encrypted cloud-based system offers the highest levels of security protocol to ensure safe data handling and transfer with ISO27001 and ISO9001 accreditations.
