Enterprise communication has changed dramatically over time. What began with emails since shifted to brief messages on platforms like Teams or Slack, and now again has changed so that much of it now takes place through employees' personal instant messaging apps.
Whether it's WhatsApp, iMessage, WeChat, Telegram, or SMS, employees are increasingly using consumer messaging apps to communicate with clients, partners, and even colleagues.
What began as a convenience during the early days of remote work, when each company was using different, and often incompatible UC software, has now become an entrenched part of daily workflows.
Although interoperability between platforms has improved, the seamless capability people get from using WhatsApp to message customers and clients means the practice persists.
However, by allowing staff to embrace this convenience, many businesses have unknowingly opened the door to serious security and compliance risks.
"Messaging has become a frontline communication tool," says Ari Applbaum, VP of Marketing at LeapXpert. "But the underlying infrastructure, the tools, the governance, even user behavior, is still rooted in legacy channels like email. That creates a massive exposure gap."
That gap is being exploited. The use of WhatsApp is increasingly attracting hackers who know that vital business information is passing through it. As a result, adversaries are using it as their preferred point of entry.
Once breached, businesses face data leaks, regulatory violations, and reputational damage, often with no way to protect themselves.
While most IT teams have built rigorous governance around email, very few have done the same for messaging. Attackers know this and are moving fast.
How Hackers Exploit the Messaging Gap
As messaging apps become business-critical tools, attackers target them as the path of least resistance. "Hackers have adapted quickly," Applbaum explains. "They know businesses are messaging-first but security-second, that makes chat a soft target."
Equally, these attacks are augmented by AI to use increasingly sophisticated phishing that can accurately impersonate clients. Indeed, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, impersonation scams have soared 148% year-on-year, thanks in part to AI tools.
Even small deviations in tone or punctuation can be AI-generated to mimic trusted senders. With WhatsApp messaging boasting a 98% open rate, and users treating chat messages with less scrutiny than email, phishing attempts are not only more believable but also sees increased engagement.
Once opened, a message might dupe the worker to clicking a link by claiming to be a client sharing a contract or a colleague requesting feedback on some work. Malware can then be loaded onto the worker's phone, wreaking havoc.
This gives attackers access to all business-specific information discussed on that device: pricing, strategy, accounts, anything.
"Mobile device management secures the device," says Applbaum, "but it doesn't secure message content. That's a common misconception." He adds that end-to-end encryption is not a silver bullet: "Encrypted in transit doesn't mean safe. You must consider where data is stored, how it's processed, and who controls the keys."
Companies have no way to detect or stop these breaches because business data on off-channel messaging isn't connected to corporate systems. Personal cloud backups, auto-sync, and private storage mean sensitive data can live and leak from unmanaged environments.
The risks from such an occurrence range from compliance failures to breaches that threaten customer trust and regulatory rules.
Secure Messaging, Built for the Enterprise
You may think that one way of solving this challenge is to cease the use of off-channel messaging. Yet, that would prove futile and even a hindrance to valuable business being conducted on these channels.
