Copilot dramatically increases your breach risk – if governance isn’t in place
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a breakthrough in workplace productivity. It brings the power of AI to your fingertips, helping staff summarise documents, draft content, surface insights and search across vast volumes of organisational data – all in seconds.
But here’s the problem: that same power is available to anyone who gains access to a user account.And that changes everything.
The breach risk with Copilot is exponential
Let’s say a user falls victim to a phishing attack – something that still happens daily across every sector. An attacker now holds valid credentials. Previously, this would allow slow, manual access to data – clicking through emails, guessing folder names, trawling through SharePoint. It was laborious, error-prone, and often detectable.
But with Copilot enabled, the attacker doesn’t need to guess. They can ask.
And Copilot will answer – drawing on its access to documents, emails, Teams chats, meeting transcripts, and more. As long as the compromised user account has permissions (and in many organisations, permissions are overly broad), the attacker can instantly extract the crown jewels: confidential strategy, IP, financials, legal risk, customer data.
In short: what would have taken weeks or months can now happen in minutes.
That’s why deploying Copilot without mature governance increases your exposure to breach by a factor far beyond what traditional tools present. This isn’t an incremental risk – it’s a step change.
This isn’t theoretical – it’s already being exploited
Security researchers have demonstrated just how quickly an attacker can turn Copilot into a weapon once inside the environment:
- By mimicking users’ writing styles, Copilot can craft highly convincing spear-phishing emails to deepen an attack.
- Through prompt injection, attackers can manipulate Copilot into surfacing sensitive data without users realising it’s happening.
- And with access to documents and emails, Copilot becomes the attacker’s shortcut to your organisation’s most sensitive material.
The faster you can access data, the faster someone else can, too.
Governance must come first
Copilot isn’t dangerous on its own. The danger comes from turning it loose in an environment where:
- Sensitive data isn’t labelled
- Access controls are inconsistent
- No oversight exists on how data is being used or surfaced
- Users are unaware of phishing and prompt injection risks
At Affinity Data, we help organisations take a governance-first approach to Microsoft 365 Copilot. Using Microsoft Purview, we help you classify, protect and monitor your sensitive data so Copilot works for you, not against you.
Because if Copilot is running and your governance isn’t rock solid, the real risk isn’t just a breach – it’s a supercharged breach.
Contact us for more.
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