{
  "slug": "approve-by-email-and-emoji",
  "title": "Reply APPROVE is not an approval. It is a mailbox proof.",
  "summary": "Email replies, Slack reactions and Teams card taps prove someone held a session, not that a human approved a payment. Why chat approvals fail, and what replaces them.",
  "lede": "Somewhere in your company today, a payment, a production access grant, or a new supplier will be authorized by a thumbs-up emoji. The workflow engine will record a name, an approver, and a timestamp. What actually happened is that someone holding a chat session sent a message, and those are not the same fact.",
  "date": "2026-09-03",
  "reading_time": "14 min read",
  "category": "Security",
  "tags": [
    "Slack approval security",
    "email approval workflow",
    "mailbox grade approval",
    "SOX approval controls",
    "purchase order approval",
    "adversary in the middle",
    "session theft"
  ],
  "image": "https://cdn.twc.sh/images/igcache/Mailbox%20Grade%20Approval/1200_630/blog.jpg",
  "url": "/blog/approve-by-email-and-emoji.html",
  "wordcount": 3377,
  "related": [
    "vendor-bank-change-fraud",
    "help-desk-mfa-reset-attack",
    "deepfake-cfo-wire-fraud"
  ],
  "schema": "Article"
}