In brief: The majority of organisations deceive themselves about the security of their collaboration infrastructure: while they rate it as protected, they actually share sensitive information over fragmented and unsuitable channels.
A Wire study among European IT and compliance executives reveals a significant discrepancy between security perception and practice: while 84 percent rate their collaboration environment as secure, 88 percent of organisations regularly use insecure channels for confidential data.
The Wire study surveyed IT, security and compliance executives from several European countries. The central finding: 84 percent rate their collaboration environment as sufficiently secured. Against this stands a very different reality – 48 percent admit to exchanging sensitive information at least occasionally via unsuitable applications. At 88 percent of all surveyed organisations, confidential data regularly flows through insecure channels. Financial data, personal information, contracts, legal documents, strategy and business plans, and operational communications are particularly frequently affected.
Collaboration landscapes are fragmented and diverse: 80 percent use Microsoft Teams, email remains central at 63 percent. Added to this are video conferencing systems, cloud storage and messaging services. Notably, 42 percent of organisations also use private applications such as WhatsApp or Signal for collaboration – services not designed for the exchange of business data. The reasons for circumventing official solutions are pragmatic: employees perceive alternative apps as faster or easier in urgent situations, external partners use different systems, or in-house solutions appear too complex.
The gap between perception and actual control is substantial. Only 29 percent believe their current collaboration solutions are fully suitable for protecting confidential information. 39 percent admit that parts of their workflows are not covered by official enterprise solutions at all. In terms of managing file access, there are significant shortcomings: one-third of organisations cannot determine who has access to sensitive files. At 61 percent, permissions remain at least occasionally longer than intended after project completion.
External collaboration is a particular source of risk. At 81 percent of organisations, a substantial part of confidential communication involves customers, service providers, suppliers or other external partners. This exchange takes place predominantly via traditional email, file-sharing links or messaging services. Only 28 percent use platforms specifically developed for secure external collaboration. One-third of respondents cannot reliably assess whether they retain control over confidential files after sharing them. Almost half expect significant consequences should a security incident occur in digital collaboration.
Source: www.it-daily.net · Published 8 July 2026
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