Microsoft Teams is becoming another way for criminals to infiltrate an organization or spread malware.
According to Help Net Security viruses are being distributed via Teams Chats.
A program with an innocent name like UserCentric.exe allows hackers to remotely control computers, install DLL’s and get more information about the user and organization.
Infected Office documents could also be distributed via Teams as attachments to chats.
Many Teams users seem to assume chat attachments are safe because communication is all internal to the organization. Sadly that’s not always true.
If just one user in an organization has been compromised, their account can be used to spread nasties to others. Not just by email but also messaging and Teams.
Many Teams have members or guests from outside the host organization. That makes Teams vulnerable to infiltration from otherwise well protected organizations..
Not just email
Hopefully everyone now knows to be wary of email attachments, even from ‘trusted’ sources. But people don’t apply the same caution to Teams, partly because Microsoft has focused their promotion on the positives without a warning about the downsides.
Of course, the same caution should be applied to attachments in Slack or other collaboration products.
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Safe computing means being wary of incoming files from ANY source – email, USB ‘stick’, WhatsApp, Signal, Teams, Slack, carrier pigeon, whatever.
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