A man types on a computer keyboard in Warsaw in this February 28, 2013 illustration. (Photo : Reuters)
Slack, a team communication chat room service, got infected by a hacker attack last month. On March 27, the company admitted the news of hacking of its central database, as reported by Computer World.
Launched in August 2013 and signed up 8000 users within 24 hours of launch, the popular chat tool which was has now reached to 500,000 users.
In a blog post by Slack, to fight back the intrusion, the company released two-factor authentication and told slack users to follow it. Though the company did not specify the exact number of users who have suffered.
Slack confirmed that they blocked this unauthorized access, which took place up to four days in February. They said they have even made necessary changes to its framework to prevent any such incidences in future.
No financial or payment related information was accessed and there was no trace the hackers were able to decode the user's passwords as it uses a technique called hashing. The information including log-in details, email addresses of user's profile were accessed. Also additional information from database like their phone numbers and Skype IDs were ingressed.
In addition to the framework changes, Slack recommends all its users to turn on the two-factor authentication, where the user has to submit a verification code whenever they sign-in to slack with their password.
The "Password Kill Switch" another security feature will allow a resetting of password and termination of all user sessions from all devices wherever it is logged-in for all the team members.
While giving out the details of the intrusion and added security features in a blog released by the company, Slack's VP and Head of Policy/Compliance Strategy Anne Toth said they will file a case to acknowledge this illegal invasion.
