It’s not uncommon for employees to share sensitive corporate information via popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype for Business, and even Snapchat. It might seem harmless, but the privacy and security features on these messaging applications aren’t as strong as employees might think. Sure, some of these applications offer some sort of encryption but they still are able to access personal information (name, picture, messages) and authorize other applications to access that same information as well. In terms of data security however, this is problematic — it’s important that trade secrets, banking information, and client information remain absolutely secure from third-party messaging applications. Fortunately, there are enterprise messaging apps, like Nuro, that take corporate privacy into consideration. In searching for the right secure messaging application for your business, make sure that they include these three privacy features:

Sure, Skype for Business is a great way to communicate with colleagues — it’s easy, simple, and cost effective. However, in terms of cyber security, Skype for Business is not the most viable solution on the market. Today, businesses must take a zero tolerance policy when it comes to protecting their data, which ranges from banking information to trade secrets. Thus, in deliberating which messaging platform to adopt, it’s important to truly understand the security weakness that come with the mainstream solutions, that is, Skype for Business, Jabber, and Sametime. Fortunately, there are messaging tools that offer the similar services as these solutions but with enhanced security — Nuro Secure Messaging is the best example. With that in consideration, here are a few points to keep in mind when considering which business messaging solution to implement.

Mobile First

It shouldn’t be surprising to hear that in the last few years, mobile internet usage has overtaken desktop as the most used digital platform. It’s for this reason that companies everywhere, including Facebook, Google, etc, are racing to adapt their platforms to fit our smartphones. After all, this is the only way these major companies can ensure that people will continue using their products. However, many collaboration and messaging tools such as Skype for Business were designed with desktop in mind rather than mobile, essentially limiting Skype’s ability to grab, onboard, and engage mobile users — not to mention that mobile user experience is not priority. Nuro, on the other hand, is a mobile first platform, meaning mobile is the main vision of the application. Nuro, which was developed by experts in mobile design and mobile security, has dedicated itself to improving and enhancing the mobile user experience, ultimately understanding that the majority of user communication is done from our pocket.

It’s common for physicians to still text each other about sensitive patient information — it’s quick, easy, but also in violation of HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. In addition to several other regulations, HIPAA requires that healthcare providers and organizations enact procedures ensuring that protected health information (or “PHI”, which includes paper, oral and electronic information) remain confidential and secure. However, if healthcare professionals share PHI on standard text messaging services, their messages can be read by just about anyone, meaning cybercriminals can intercept and read the messages in transit. Thus, because regular text messaging is not secure, the doctors and nurses that share PHI via SMS are not only risking paying thousands of dollars in penalties to the government but also lengthy jail sentences.

It was the mid-1990s when AOL first popularized instant messaging. MSN, Yahoo!, and others quickly followed suit after recognizing that instant messaging was becoming mainstream — people thoroughly enjoyed the convenience and ease of chatting with friends in real-time on their desktop computers.

At the time, instant messaging had typically been used in social settings. However, as SMS and social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become more prevalent, instant messaging platforms have quietly suffered; but instant messaging made a comeback … in the businesses sector.

If you think about just how much data is floating around the web, unprotected and for anyone to view and exploit, then it’s almost obvious that adopting certain cybersecurity measures, like message encrypting, is an absolute must. This is especially true in seeing that high profile corporate security breaches are becoming more and more common; there’s no guessing who might have access to your business’s confidential information and what they might do with it.

That said, the most basic way to protect business messages from being hacked, seen, or stolen, is to encrypt messages.

This past year, the FBI has observed a stark increase (53%!) in the amount of corporate espionage cases within the United States. In specific, corporate espionage – or also, economic or industrial espionage – is the theft or illicit trade of company secrets, often resulting in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. In analyzing their past investigations, the FBI has pointed out that a major concern in corporate espionage today are “insider threats” – essentially, employees who are knowledgeable of confidential matters are being recruited by competitor companies, and foreign governments in exchange for large amounts of money at much higher rates than ever before.

With the immense amounts of corporate data traveling between devices, there should be no leniency in implementing security and protection measures for business communications – no gap should be left uncovered, otherwise, some of all that corporate information could fall into the wrong hands.

Corporate America seems to expect its employees to send and receive hundreds of work-related messages a day. In fact, I’m confident that there’s rarely a time when your work inbox is empty; unless you’re a zero inbox adept you’ve probably accumulated about 10,000 unread messages just sitting there waiting for you to delete or read them.

This is why the best corporate messaging apps have several layers of security – to ensure absolute protection. In searching for a secure messaging app, businesses must be sure that it encompasses at least: encryption during transit, encryption at rest, and security at the user’s device. And, if they want to be extra careful, cognitive security that can predict future breaches offers extra safety and peace of mind. This is of course, in addition to making certain that the creative and development team behind the product are not only capable and dedicated, but also forward thinking in that they are leading the latest technology developments.

It’s been a difficult year for cyber security – although more businesses are recognizing the importance of adopting preventative security measures, we continue to see heavy and drastic security attacks on some of the US’s largest enterprises, such as Sony, Anthem Health Insurance, JP Morgan, and Fidelity. In order to combat cybercriminals, it’s important to reflect on the past year, learn from our mistakes, and do everything possible to ensure security breaches don’t become mainstream in the future. After all, if we educate ourselves on the issues, and stay one step ahead of the bad guys, we’ll be in a better place to respond when the time calls for it. Here are our cyber security predictions for 2016:

Today, businesses are increasingly recognizing that instant messaging is more efficient than lengthy, back-and-forth, never-ending email chains. It’s no wonder that collaboration solutions are skyrocketing, while email and other traditional communication platforms are slowly drifting into oblivion.

Still, there are a few questions enterprises need to ask before adopting a completely new form of corporate communication – most importantly, are the confidential messages employees send their coworkers, whether they’re simple conversations or explicit sensitive information, secure and protected? After all, any exchange between employees, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is considered business confidential.

Naturally, obliging employees to download a secure messaging application is perhaps the best way to ensure that employees both enjoy the advantages of instant messaging while still protecting sensitive corporate information.