The only Slack vendor for DLP and eDiscovery

Aware works with Enterprise Grid and other tiers. Get in touch with us today to talk about how we can integrate with your Slack environment.

Companies can store and retain their Slack data, even on Slack Connect. This functionality supports businesses that use Slack to communicate with employees and customers, without requiring them to store data on their own servers. Companies can now keep all their communications in one place and control who has access to their data. As a result, Slack data is more secure, even on Slack Connect.

The increasing use of digital collaboration tools presents new eDiscovery challenges for modern businesses. In the event of a lawsuit or other legal proceeding, companies may be required to produce electronically stored information such as Slack messages. This presents a challenge, as Slack was not designed with eDiscovery in mind and only data from public channels is available to all users. This creates huge blind spots where information security risks can thrive. Fortunately, platforms like Aware can enable search, analysis and exporting capabilities for Slack data by connecting through Slack’s discovery API. This gives organizations the power to perform fast, effective eDiscovery and produce relevant results in an efficient manner.

Slack only exports files in JSON or TXT format, which can be hard to read and don’t preserve all metadata and context. Aware customers can export files in the following types.

• DAT 
• CSV 
• PDF (for singular results only)

Because Slack is a primary form of business communication for employees, customers, vendors and partners, there is potential for confidential information to be accidentally leaked. To mitigate this risk, Aware enables businesses to proactively monitor for sensitive information. By identifying and flagging these conversations, organizations can help to ensure that confidential messages stay safe. In addition, they can also use Slack's security features to control who has access to specific channels and conversations. By taking these proactive measures, businesses can help to protect their information while still enjoying the benefits of using Slack.

Aware has the functionality to monitor and store the following message types:

• Direct Messaging 
• Public Channels 
• Private Channels 
• Slack Connect Messaging 
• Shared Files 
• Shared Images

Aware research from ingesting millions of real messages shows that employees frequently share PHI, PII, and other sensitive data through workplace collaboration platforms. This can pose a serious compliance risk for companies, as PHI and PII are protected under federal regulations. Aware helps companies to remain compliant by allowing customers to configure automated alerts and remediation workflows whenever PII or PHI are detected. By taking these steps, companies can help protect themselves from penalties associated with the misuse of PHI and PII.

If you need to save or share Slack data in files other than native JSON or TXT, you can do so from the Administration settings. Exported data contains information like messages, files and Slack user data. Aware’s federated Search & eDiscovery app speeds up exports by surfacing the most relevant content for a range of search criteria, including user or custodian, keywords, date, data type, channels and more. This eliminates the need to export multiple datasets and supports more efficient eDiscovery and ECA workflows.

Data in SaaS apps like Slack is subject to the same laws and regulations as any other company-owned information. For example, regulated companies in financial and healthcare sectors should consider their obligations to FINRA and HIPAA compliance before deploying Slack. In particular, SEC 17a-4 makes clear that retention regulations apply to business collaboration messages.

Businesses in all sectors should also consider their obligations under privacy legislation like the GDPR and CCPA/CPRA. Employees have the right under these laws to file data subject access requests (DSARs) and exercise their right to be forgotten in all places where companies store information about them, including within Slack.

Each organization should create its own best-use policies for all employee communications, including collaboration tools, email and social media. These policies should directly address compliance and data security with clear guidelines on what information is and isn’t appropriate. With the correct policies and procedures in place, organizations should then implement data governance tools like Aware to ensure adherence through routine compliance adherence that can surface and action confidential information in real time. Aware can help augment Slack compliance enforcement by implementing automated coaching alerts when policy violations occur in Slack.

By default, Slack keeps a complete record of all messages and file uploads for all paid plans, although companies may have to upgrade to access their full history. Data generated by free plans is only available for a year, unless the admin upgrades the account. By upgrading, Slack workspace administrators can also manually adjust their data retention policies. Slack Enterprise Grid users have the most functionality for customizing these permissions. In addition, Slack keeps a log of all user activity, including which channels are joined and left, as well as who is added and removed from teams. This activity data is stored for 12 months. Overall, native Slack policies offer a good balance between privacy and security but lack the granularity that some enterprises desire. For more flexible granularity, Aware enables bi-directional retention policy implementation with the ability to customize time frames by data type. Bi-directional data retention ensures that content is deleted from both the Aware archive and the data-in-place. Alternatively, if Aware customers prefer to configure customized policies only in the Aware archive and keep Slack’s native polices on the platform itself, this is also possible.

Data loss prevention is a holistic approach to preventing data loss by managing how data moves within the digital workplace. DLP can be used to prevent data leaks in Slack by limiting access to the app and restricting the movement of data within it. Examples of DLP in action include preventing users from sharing confidential files, monitoring Slack channels to enforce acceptable use policies, and using AI/ML-powered technology to identify and mitigate data risks in real time.

Data loss prevention isn’t just a concern to government agencies, healthcare systems, and regulated businesses like financial and legal institutions. Any company that handles sensitive data needs a plan to secure it. That includes regulated information such as personally identifiable information (PII), credit card numbers (PCI), and protected health information (PHI), as well as valuable company-owned data like financial records and intellectual property (IP).

Organizations with remote or distributed workforces may be at greater risk because so much information is shared through digital workplace tools like Slack. DLP for Slack ensures sensitive information shared on the platform remains secure even outside traditional office environments.

Slack does not currently offer any native DLP functionality. Organizations must authenticate a third-party tool like Aware through the discovery API to enable data loss prevention. Aware supports DLP in Slack by automatically detecting and blocking custodians from sending sensitive information. Aware is the only Slack partner recommended for both DLP and eDiscovery.

To protect data in Slack, workspace admins should follow these best practices:

• Implement solutions that can categorize and tag sensitive data like PII, financial information, or intellectual property within Slack channels and messages.
• Set granular channel permissions to limit access to sensitive information only to authorized end users.
• Carefully manage guest access and permissions to minimize potential data risk, and use Slack Connect when working with external users.
• Review and restrict authentication granted to third-party apps and providers integrated with your Slack workspace and regularly audit integrations for security and privacy.
• Create acceptable use policies for Slack and educate employees on proper data handling practices, identifying phishing scams, and reporting suspicious activity.

When buying DLP solutions for Slack, it’s important to find a tool that was built to handle the unique complexities of Slack data. This includes the ability to connect to Slack via API and perform real-time content monitoring and alerting, bidirectional data retention and deletion, data redaction and policy enforcement, backed by secure audit logs. Slack DLP must have the ability to work in public channels, private channels, and direct messages, and capture content such as threaded messages, emojis, and file attachments.

Aware enhances security, risk management and business intelligence capabilities in Slack and all other major collaboration tools. Aware ingests data from various collaboration platforms, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Workplace from Meta into one holistic repository. Maintaining one central location for data consolidation and governance results in significant operational efficiencies and cost savings for your business.

GovSlack is Slack’s offering specifically designed for US government agencies and partner organizations. This purpose-built and scalable solution supports necessary compliance and governance standards such as FedRAMP High, DoD SRG IL4, ITAR and more. Slack has named Aware as a trusted vendor to augment GovSlack by enhancing its security and compliance requirements.

Aware enriches every Slack message with proprietary machine learning and industry-leading Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand message intent through sentiment and conversation health analysis. This information is used to provide business intelligence at the aggregate level. Some of the world’s leading corporations trust Aware to alert them of organizational culture shifts, as well as provide advanced reporting that delivers new insights into specific groups, departments, policies or projects across the enterprise.