The Essentials of Slack Data Loss Prevention

If your business is one of the more than 750,000 organizations that use Slack, you’ve likely come to appreciate its convenience and ease of use. But are you familiar with its data security protocols and policies? Today, we’re going to explore how you can manage Slack data loss prevention and what you need to know about these practices to ensure your company’s data safety and compliance.

Does Slack Have Data Loss Prevention?

Yes, Slack does have data loss prevention. Its native DLP lets you protect your organization’s data and prevent any unwanted sharing of information. Slack DLP is only available at the Enterprise Grid level plan, and gives your organization full control over the rules that trigger a DLP alert.

These advanced data monitoring and security protocols work to prevent unauthorized data sharing. Additionally, Slack has the capacity to integrate with DLP providers if your organization requires an extra layer of protection.

What Is Data Loss Prevention?

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is a set of strategies and tools used to prevent the unauthorized sharing, transfer, or loss of sensitive data. DLP solutions monitor data traffic across communication platforms to detect potential security threats. When these are found, DLP blocks inappropriate messages and data transfers. DLP solutions are designed to ensure that only authorized personnel have access to and can share sensitive information.

Key aspects of DLP include:

• Monitoring the movement of data across channels
• Blocking unauthorized data transfers
• Detecting risky behavior and issuing alerts
• Reporting and auditing data interactions

Why Is Slack Data Loss Prevention Important?

In general, DLP is necessary to protect sensitive data, like customer information and financial records, from being leaked or misused. Data loss can come from many origins, ranging from simple mistakes to security threats like external cyberattacks and system vulnerabilities.

When you consider Slack’s rapid growth, it is important to remember that more users on Slack equals more opportunities for nefarious parties to gain access to sensitive data. Some of these internal threats are malicious insiders who intentionally steal or sabotage data; others are unintentional insiders, who may accidentally violate company policy by sharing personal identifiable information inside Slack channels or private messages.

However, with a good Slack data loss prevention strategy in place, organizations can work to prevent these incidents. They can also respond more effectively in the event that breaches do occur. And since the consequences of data breaches can be severe, leading to financial loss and reputational damage, your DLP strategy protects more than just data– it protects your company’s bottom line.

Slack DLP is also essential for compliance with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, or CCPA. These standards require that businesses protect sensitive data from unauthorized parties, and Slack data loss prevention tools help companies align with relevant rules and guidelines.

Failure to meet these stringent data protection regulations can result in legal penalties. A strong DLP strategy helps mitigate these risks by securing data and ensuring that proper protocols are followed. DLP should be present for all forms of communication, including email and messaging systems like Slack.

Is Slack Secure for Sensitive Data?

Data security is vital for any business; regardless of industry or what you do, your financial information, customer information, proprietary business information, and other types of important data need to be protected. Using any third-party communications tool can introduce vulnerabilities, but Slack offers several security features that make it a secure platform for sharing sensitive information.

In addition to its DLP capabilities, Slack ensures data security through several key features, like encryption, access control, data governance, and compliance management. These features allow businesses to control how long data is retained and ensure that it can be retrieved as needed for audits or legal purposes.

How Slack DLP Works

Managing your DLP settings in Slack requires you to have the DLP Admin role. Once the organization owner or Role Admin grants you the role, you can create custom rules or use preconfigured options to scan for violations.

DLP for Slack automatically scans messages, files, and canvases, but does not scan canvases in Slack Connect conversations. This means that if you’re using Slack Connect to communicate with other organizations, DLP for Slack will not work in that specific context. It's important to manually review or implement additional security measures when collaborating with external organizations via Slack Connect.

When rule breaches occur, admins are notified via Slackbot. They can then take actions like displaying alerts, hiding content, or showing warnings to users. All violations are managed through a central dashboard, even if rules only apply selectively to specific Slack conversations or workspaces. No matter where the violation occurs, they all show up in the same space.

You can also change the DLP rules if desired; once you create a rule, you aren’t locked in forever. You can modify your organization’s DLP rules through the organization settings menu; it’s under the security tab. Then, choose data loss prevention, and under the rules tab, you can edit or deactivate rules from there.

Enhancing Slack Data Loss Prevention

While Slack offers a solid foundation for data security, sometimes the built-in solutions are not sufficient. When you need advanced data retention, you need an equally advanced solution. Our Expireon solution can fill any gaps and provide additional protection.

Expireon enhances Slack’s native DLP by offering more granular control over data retention and legal holds, as well as powerful search capabilities for eDiscovery. Through advanced legal holds and streamlined export tools that go beyond Slack’s native functionality, we provide the additional layers of security needed to fully protect and manage data.

Cloudficient’s unrivaled, next generation technology is revolutionizing the way businesses retire legacy systems, transform their organizations into the cloud, and capture, retain and protect the data once it’s there. Guiding customers through every stage of the enterprise lifecycle, our comprehensive services include cloud migration, information governance, and custodian management. 

Whether you're transitioning to the cloud, ensuring data compliance, or managing electronic data for legal purposes, our expert team provides the support and solutions you need to succeed. 

Bring Cloudficiency to your enterprise lifecycle: visit our website or contact us directly.