CISO’s must continue to monitor ‘Back-Office Clutter’ Data!

DarkReading.com reported that “Security leaders in critical infrastructure traditionally have focused their defensive energy on operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS). Those remain the crown jewels for attackers.”  The October 13, 2025 article entitled " Critical infrastructure CISOs Can't Ignore 'Back-Office Clutter' Data” (https://www.darkreading.com/cyberattacks-data-breaches/critical-infrastructure-back-office-data) included these comments:

But while they've been patching programmable logic centers (PLCs) and segmenting control centers, sprawling collaboration platforms — SharePoint, Google Drive, Exchange, Gmail, Teams, Slack, Box, and old-fashioned file shares — have quietly become the single largest unmonitored attack surface in the enterprise.

These systems are indispensable. They're easy to use, embedded into daily operations, and frictionless for sharing. That same ubiquity is exactly what makes them so dangerous. Information moves with a click, but oversight rarely keeps pace. Sensitive documents proliferate in dozens of formats, from CAD files to PDFs, and in hidden corners like document metadata and chat transcripts. Left ungoverned, these platforms are beyond messy; they're opportunities waiting to be exploited.

Think about how collaboration works today in a utility or pipeline operator. Teams spin up SharePoint sites and Microsoft Teams or Slack channels without a second thought. Someone creates a Box folder for a vendor. HR moves onboarding forms to Google Drive. The result: petabytes of enterprise data sprawled across thousands of sites and folders, with little classification and even less monitoring.

What do you think?