A view of office workers from behind while they work on computers with two screens at their desks

Employees are most vulnerable to cyberattacks via cloud-connected office equipment, according to a new report from Netskope, a software company providing computer security. The report highlighted the ways hackers are gaining access to corporate computer systems.

By infecting a worker’s computer using corporate servers in the cloud, hackers can gain access to confidential company information. They can also could impersonate the worker using their professional email account.

The report warns employees to beware of emails that look like they’re from a legitimate company but may contain a fake invoice or ask them to review a document that looks like an HTML file but is actually a downloadable PDF, MarketWatch reports.

Google Drive was the top app for malware downloads in 2021, Netskope reports. The percentage of malware downloads from cloud apps was about 66%, which is up from 46% in 2020.

“Abuse of cloud storage is an industrywide issue and we’re constantly working to reduce the use of Microsoft services to cause harm,” a Microsoft spokeswoman told MarketWatch about the report’s findings. She advised people to take caution when clicking on links to web pages, opening unknown files, or accepting file transfers.

Advertisement