The pandemic period has brought a new normal to businesses, educational institutions and our daily lives. Hybrid working and hybrid playing are now going together in hybrid living, but where is the boundary between the two? questions were asked.

ISTANBUL (IGFA) – Many interactions, both business and personal, have moved to the virtual environment.

Digital security company ESET evaluated business and entertainment life, which began to slide into the virtual world, from a cybersecurity perspective.

We have moved into a new dimension of working, socializing and playing games with cloud-supported applications both in our hands and pocket devices. With the pandemic, many people and institutions had to compensate for the losses suffered because they gave up working conditions in the physical environment. The virtual transition began as individuals and institutions turn to proven connectivity solutions such as Microsoft Teams, Slack and Zoom, which combine comprehensive communication features with support and productivity tools. Together with Skype and Skype for Business, these were all known companies before our ‘new normal’; however, the transition to hybrid work, education and gaming has increased the popularity of these platforms. Shared access and shared files, parallel business processes, instant messaging and more services such as cloud-based solutions have become easily accessible. But there is also the flip side of the coin.

KEEPING THE HYBRID LIVING COMFORT

Launched in 2017, Microsoft Teams is currently Microsoft’s fastest growing app and communication tool. Annual Teams users increased by nearly two cards in 2020 and 2021, with 270 million users in 2022.

Most of the users in question are people in the 35-54 working age range. Although it was designed for business purposes, Teams, which most people opt for, is now widely used for educational purposes and plays a role in people’s private lives. While Microsoft Contact stands out as a comfortable option among communication applications, it also carries some risks.

In 2021, a vulnerability was discovered in Teams that allowed insiders to steal email, Teams messages, and OneDrive and SharePoint files. More recently, in August 2022, a post-attack risk arose due to Teams storing access tokens in plain text on disk. Such risks mean that cloud-based solutions are more vulnerable than on-premise solutions and therefore require a special layer of cloud-based protection.