Slack is a cloud-based team collaboration software platform, used by large and small businesses. If you haven’t heard of it, you will. According to CNN, the platform had eight million users as of December 2018.
Launched in August 2013, Slack has grown up in a world that ranks online security at primary importance. Unlike a purely social media platform, the app enjoys use by business professional and employee teams. That means that the conversations, by their nature, reveal a lot about those professionals or those companies. The security of those conversations has some people asking if Slack is safe. Who can access those conversations and what has Slack done to make those communications secure?
External Threats to Your Slack Data
How safe is online data? Gaining an understanding of security risks is good practice for business owners. We hear of data breaches and hacks in the present day on a regular basis. Hackers might try to use fake names to infiltrate Slack groups or view conversations stored there. Slack can also integrate with other apps, allowing unexpected exchanges of information. That might open the door to intrusion via those associations. Slack users should always make sure integrated apps have sufficient security features before pulling them into use.
Internal Threats to Your Slack Data
The largest internal threat to Slack is actually nothing new. Employers using the app to connect their employees need to monitor that usage. Accidental misuse or actual sabotage by employees is as old as the employer-employee relationship itself. Once you invite people inside your network, you open your conversations and any company data shared on Slack to those employees or associates. While that problem has received a lot of recent scrutiny, it also rolls within the well-worn treads of the worker relationship with management. That leaves business owners and managers in familiar territory but simply with new technology.
How to Avoid Slack Security Threats
Slack is a communication platform. That means the data most at risk are your communications. What have you shared on your Slack channels? Password Boss warns that some things are best left out of the stream. Do no share passwords, phone numbers, personal addresses, or other private information. Some say that you should not even use your last name. Harking back to relationships between employers and employees, users might not want use Slack to have private conversations about the boss or other employees. Under certain circumstances, those conversations might be discoverable. Some Slack permissions allow the administrator, most likely the business owner or manager, to see what conversations occurred on their channel. Additionally, conversations are available to Slack employees under certain circumstances. That means those records are vulnerable to legal subpoenas.
Slack App Security
The Slack team is very aware of security issues and has responded to those threats. They are happy to engage users on the subject of security and ask users to point out any issues they believe exist. Security experts have pointed out that Slack creators could have created a zero-knowledge encryption to cut Slack employees from the loop, but did not. Slack creators assure that access to that data has many restrictions. After what appears to be Slacks one brush with security, it adopted two factor authentication. With a list of risks considered, the National Cyber Security Center grades Slack fairly well.
Should You Choose Slack for Your Business?
Like many communication platforms on the Internet, Slack has faced its own share of security concerns. It may rest in the hands of the business owners to decide if a communication platform like Slack works for them. Those with sensitive data may seek other solutions. The conveniences of linking dispersed workers together stands as a good argument to trust the safety features Slack has in place, however. The work space appears to offer more conversation privacy than ordinary social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. The best solution may be to inform employees of best practices on Slack and what they should and should not share. You should also ask your IT specialist what measures they recommend.
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