Apparently, the mouse hates a data breach, with Disney opting to completely stop using the team communication platform Slack after a breach led to a leak of company data.
Slack has become a popular solution for businesses to stay in touch with their teams, particularly with remote employees needing a way to remain in the fray. In fact, the Salesforce-owned platform boasts more than 32 million users across the globe.
That number may dip a bit, though, given that Disney and its 220,000 employees will no longer be utilizing Slack by the end of the year.
Disney Internal Memo: No More Slack
An internal memo to Disney employees announced that the company would be transitioning away from using Slack for communication within the business.
The goal is for all Disney business units would no longer use the team communication platform by the first quarter of 2025.
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“As some of you are aware, many teams have already begun their transition to streamlined enterprise-wide collaboration tools. As part of this work, I would like to share that senior leadership has made the decision to transition away from Slack across the company.” – Hugh Johnston, CFO at Disney
Many employees at Disney expressed their displeasure with the move on the company’s anonymous message board, noting that the likely replacement, Microsoft Teams, was “terrible” and “horrible.”
Why Is Disney Ditching Slack?
Abruptly changing the way your entire multinational company communicates with each other is a big move and not one made lightly.
This announcement from Disney comes just a few months after hacker group Nullbulge claimed that it had breached internal Slack messages and acquired valuable company data in the process. In fact, according to Wired, Disney lost as much as 1.1 TB of messages and files to the hackers.
There was no mention of the breach in the internal memo, but it is safe to assume that this security breakdown is to blame, even if it isn’t entirely Slack’s fault.
Is Slack Safe to Use?
If you’re one of the 32 million employees who use Slack to communicate with your team, being concerned about the security of the platform is a more than reasonable response to the news. Still, while the details of the July breach aren’t available for all to see, it’s safe to assume that there was at least a bit of blame to go around for Disney as well.
“Our security is rock-solid. Companies also have to take the right measure to prevent phishing attacks and to lockdown their employees’ social engineering. So, we can do our part, but our customers also have to do their part.” – Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, during Dreamforce 2024
There is no 100% secure platform on the internet that doesn’t have to worry about human error. Phishing scams, ransomware, and all the other hacking methods heavily rely on people messing up, rather than technology. All that to say, Slack is as secure as your team is trained.
