Today’s business collaboration platforms and tools continue to evolve, and recent headlines from Wall Street suggest that regulatory compliance can no longer be an afterthought. Theta Lake recently published its annual research, the 2022 Modern Communications Security and Compliance Report. Surveying over 500 global compliance and security leaders, the report found that two-thirds (66%) of respondents believe employees in their companies are using unmonitored communications channels, posing big risks for security and compliance.
67% expect the usage of collaboration tools across popular platforms like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, Slack and RingCentral to increase – presenting complex challenges for those tasked with maintaining compliance, security and data privacy. As new communication channels proliferate, legacy and often manual archiving solutions are leaving critical blind spots.
We spoke with Stacey English, Director of Regulatory Intelligence at Theta Lake to dive further into the report:
How has communication at work changed since Return to Office (RTO) initiatives kicked off?
While we’re seeing more of a shift towards a hybrid office environment, that hasn’t changed the virtual working nature we’ve become accustomed to over the past three years. The adoption and usage of unified communication platforms remain the foundation of the modern workplace, and it continues to grow. More than two-thirds of respondents in Theta Lake’s 2022 Modern Communications Compliance and Security survey report expect the usage of collaboration tools across popular platforms like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, Slack and RingCentral to increase in the next year. In fact, employees are leaning further into messaging and video for a quicker and easier way of communicating with colleagues and clients alike. That can be seen through a growing preference for the feature-rich tools available through these platforms over legacy methods of communication, with 81% using chat and 63% using video as much or more than email to communicate.
From a security and compliance perspective, the regulatory expectations remain the same wherever individuals work. With the pandemic largely over, RTO means people are “on the go” and traveling again. The increased use of mobile messaging and collaboration tools presents the same risks and challenges whether employees are in their homes, within the walls of an office, or communicating from a train or coffee shop.
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