Slack launches Enterprise Key Management (EKM) to provide complete control over encryption keys

The work collaboration hub, Slack, yesterday, launched Slack Enterprise Key Management (EKM) for its enterprise customers. The feature is introduced to give customers control over their encryption keys used for encrypting and decrypting the files and messages they share on their Slack workspace.

🎉Introducing Slack Enterprise Key Management! Security-conscious and regulated organizations: you can now manage your own encryption keys. Geoff Belknap explains how it works. https://t.co/dV4ryLAyOz pic.twitter.com/1PtQazeUw8

— Slack (@SlackHQ) March 18, 2019

Following are some of the advantages Slack EKM brings in:

An extra layer of protection

Slack EKM allows customers to use their own keys, which are stored in Amazon’s Key Management Service ( AWS KMS). This will act as an extra layer of protection allowing privacy-conscious organizations such as banks share data, while also combating the risk.

Better visibility into how the keys are being used

It logs the usage of your keys to encrypt and decrypt messages and files in AWS KMS’s CloudWatch and CloudTrail. The detailed activity logs provide customers much more visibility into how the keys are being accessed.

Administrators can control access very granularly

What sets Slack EKM apart from general EKM services is that, in the case of any security threat, instead of revoking access to the entire product, it allows administrators to revoke access granularly. They can revoke access at the organization, workspace, channel, time-frame, and file levels. This type of revocation process ensures that the teams can continue to do their day-to-day work while administrators are taking care of the threat.

Sponsorships Available

Sponsorships Available

Sponsorships Available

On a phone interview, Slack Head of Enterprise Product, Ilan Frank told VentureBeat, “So today all data in Slack is encrypted at rest and in transit — but in rest, specifically. We, of course, have keys to those, and this now puts that control in the customer’s hands. It’s a feature that our large customers have been asking for for a very long time.”

To know more about Slack EKM, check out Slack’s official website.

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