
Ask HN: If your company cares about security, why does it use Slack? - misterrobot
It&#x27;s insane to me how many &quot;security conscious&quot; companies use Slack purely out of convenience.<p>The fact is, it&#x27;s an enormous, centralized application written in PHP (not <i>always</i> a bad thing, but certainly not a language that keeps you from shooting yourself in the foot), with a massive target painted on its back.<p>How is it acceptable to you to use a chat solution hosted by a third party? Why not use an alternative you can host yourselves? It&#x27;s just a matter of time before there&#x27;s a huge incident.
======
dstroot
Umm... why do people always assume "hosting it yourself" is more secure and
not less? Do you have Slack's security expertise and budget? In my experience
when small to mid-size companies attempt to manage security themselves they do
a passable job but are convinced they are doing an excellent job - until they
get hacked.

Larger companies usually have the budget, tools and expertise. But even then
there are lots big companies with mediocre security too.

~~~
falcolas
Corollary question: Why do you assume that Slack's security expertise and
security budget is greater than your own?

All we can do is assume that Slack cares about security enough to be
sufficient. Last I checked, they didn't have any form of compliance
certification, yet HIPPA, PCI, etc. compliant clients use them without
reservation.

~~~
eropple
_> Why do you assume that Slack's security expertise and security budget is
greater than your own?_

I don't assume it. I _know_ it for a fact; I've met some of their team and I
know others by reputation. And I'm not exactly a slouch when it comes to this
stuff (I don't eat and sleep crypto but a large part of my business is
building secure infrastructure/consulting on the systems running on that
infrastructure for regulated as well as non-regulated environments).

~~~
count
Slack has, publicly, a multi-member security team! That's entirely focused on
the chat system that I don't have to put any of my teams time towards.

~~~
fweespeech
I'm curious...

Which is more secure?

A) Slack.

B) Open source software on a LAN accessible only through physical entry, SSH,
and/or a VPN.

~~~
count
I'd vote slack.

~~~
fweespeech
> I'd vote slack.

Then I suggest you put more effort into securing your LAN situation because
that is a vote indicating your belief your workstations are insecure.

~~~
count
If you don't assume your user/dev workstations are insecure, you're going to
have a rough time in life.

------
count
Hosting shit yourself != more secure, and only someone with a highly naive
view of their capabilities as an organization would make that assessment.
Facebook is written in PHP too, but you don't see that being a huge secure
vulnerability, do you?

Slack has an entire security organization dedicated exclusively to securing
its stuff. My security team is focused on securing our operational systems.

Do you run your own bank? How could you outsource something so critical
(literally all your money and financial details!) to a 3rd party who doesn't
even let you audit their stuff?! It's just a matter of time before there's a
huge incident.

Do you run your own electrical generation facility? How could you outsource
something so critical to a 3rd party? I bet they don't even have an SLA!

etc. etc.

------
eropple
The usual answer is "the self-hosted options are worse to use and make people
hate them". Mattermost is a prime example, it's really clunky and
uncomfortable to use. I like Rocket Chat and have hosted an instance of it
myself, but it's shot through with inconsistencies and annoyances that Slack
just doesn't have.

The notion that self-hosted is more secure is curious, though. Slack's
security team is almost _certainly_ better than yours, for most--not all, but
most--values of "yours". You might be the rare exception (I'm certainly not,
and I build reasonably secure systems by habit, if only because I don't have
the time or money to focus solely on _a chat service_ ), but I doubt it.

~~~
it33
Hi Eropple, Mattermost team here. Sorry to hear your Mattermost experience
wasn't smooth. Could you share an example or two of what we can improve? We
ship new releases every month on the 16th. If there's something you feel
should be corrected I would love to see it addressed. There's over 500
contributors on the project and thousands of companies that deploy it.

In terms of security, I would propose that professionals dealing with
sensitive data are often more comfortable with a self-hosted solution. As an
example, former members of the CIA, FBI and NSA have used Mattermost on
national television in the US: [https://about.mattermost.com/open-source-
mattermost-software...](https://about.mattermost.com/open-source-mattermost-
software-helps-ex-cia-nsa-fbi-hunt-us-fugitives/)

~~~
eropple
I'd be a lot more inclined to spend time responding to you, because I
certainly have a list of beefs with the software, if you didn't immediately
launch into pimping your stuff and trying to sneak in how wrong I am. That's
"I choose to exhibit the social acuity of a space alien" behavior.

------
jph
TLDR we chose Mattermost over Slack because of security.
[https://www.mattermost.com](https://www.mattermost.com)

We recently evaluated many chat systems for a large tech consulting project
that includes security needs.

Slack was the frontrunner because of ubiquity, ease of use, plentiful third-
party integrations, openness to free areas, and helpful in-person meetings
with the Slack staff.

We picked Slack for our informal connections with external developers for non-
confidential discussions.

For our own teams' use, I really like Ryver. The security is better (IMHO),
the team-oriented features are stronger, and the billing is much clearer. The
Ryver team is fully open to discussions about how to grow the platform and
improve the security.

Ultimately the security team chose self-hosted Mattermost. We liked the
combination of intranet deployability, plus a ramp toward security compliance
capabilities that we do need for a few projects.

~~~
sgehly
Perhaps this is a bit immature of me, but I despise Ryver for their ads that
they put on Twitter a few months (a year?) back where it was completely trying
to discredit Slack while having a sub-par UIX itself. Maybe I'll give it
another look in the near future.

EDIT: Security-wise, I would think Slack, as a bigger company, would have
better security, but that's all assumption. Do you have anything to back up
the idea that Ryver is more secure? If so Ill definitely give it another look.

~~~
jph
I agree with you about the UI/UX. For security, it depends on your threat
model.

My threat model emphasizes ease of security by normal users. For example, is
it easy for my teammates to see when they're in a public area or private area?
Can my teammates manage access controls the ways that they want? IMHO Ryver is
better at this than Slack.

My sec team's threat model emphasizes the underlying platform getting hacked.
IMHO Ryver and Slack are both SaaS, so both in the same boat on this: the info
is outside the firewall, which incurs legal issues, compliance issues,
revocation issues, etc. I believe that SaaS providers can be excellent at
security, yet the SaaS target is much bigger, and the alerting is murkier, and
revocation is not thorough. This is why we chose Mattermost for secure chat.

------
anon1094
The most successful software apps in the world are built with PHP. Facebook,
Wikipedia, Slack, WordPress, Flickr, Yahoo. Users don't care about your tech.

~~~
nostrademons
PHP does have a track record of terrible security, though. WordPress and Yahoo
both _still_ have reputations as security clusterfucks; Facebook did too until
they grew up as a company and were able to hire some really good security
people.

However, most of the backend services at Slack (the ones you'd actually want
to attack) aren't even in PHP anymore: according to their job reqs, they're in
Java and Go.

------
dangero
It's not just the setup of a self-hosted solution, but maintenance, and
otherwise. If you look at the enterprise space, bigger and bigger companies
are becoming comfortable with cloud-hosting of services. Growth of companies
like Okta demonstrate that shift. As far as it being acceptable, I think there
are a few things to consider:

1\. The Slack model is such that your staff could start using it without even
getting permission from the top. This is the Slack strategy for sales. It
comes into companies from the bottom, so companies are more responding to the
fact that their employees are using it vs bringing it in from the top.

2\. Yes there are risks with cloud products, but risk is a cost consideration
so you look at cost impact to the company of a breach and you compare that to
a self-hosted high maintenance solution. This is a much more difficult
calculation and it really depends on the size of your company, the value of
the information Slack will be holding, etc. It's also possible Slack could be
seen as more secure because an internal system breach may not include a
complete Slack hosted breach. It could be seen as data segregation and
diversification.

3\. Slack is not the only company that is making inroads here. Slack is known
well in the tech industry, but less-so in other industries. Microsoft is a
giant because Skype for Business is huge, and there's many others.

------
zzalpha
Well that's a loaded question... this could easily be rephrased as "How do
your companies align the need for security with the use of cloud hosted
services like Slack?"

But then again, that assumes an honest question and not an agenda...

------
stusmall
You should assume that chat logs can become public at anytime, if you host it
yourself or not. Don't put sensitive/embarrassing unencrypted information in
chat or email. People forget this is still data at rest.

~~~
abakker
A corollary of this is a saying a friend's dad used to have, "If it isn't in
writing, it doesn't exist". Of course, with VOIP, video, etc, it is more, "if
it isn't done in person via voice, it does exist". If it would be damaging to
leak, seriously consider whether it should be written down at all, especially
in casual conversations.

------
petercooper
I have an analogy.

Why would a zebra have evolved to have black and white stripes? You could see
a zebra from _miles_ away due to how it stands out! Yet.. when it's in a
_herd_ of zebra, it's hard to pick any individual one out, and that's why the
pattern works.

And so it goes with using services like Slack, Gmail, S3, etc. My account on
its own may not be the most secure thing ever but it's hidden in such a large
pool of data - much of it far more valuable than mine - that the safety of the
herd becomes relevant.

------
cocktailpeanuts
Because they care about convenience as well, and that value outshines the
elusive "lack of security". You'll probably end up with much less secure
option if you try to host one yourself, unless you're really dedicated to the
chat app, in which case you have your priorities wrong. You should be focused
on your own product.

------
kogir
We discuss nothing sensitive in chat, just as we refrain from doing so over
unencrypted email. Pretty straightforward.

------
blakesterz
>> It's just a matter of time before there's a huge incident.

I suppose that's correct. When (or maybe if, but probably when) Slack gets
breached/hacked/owned it's going to be _huge_ because a _huge_ number of
people are going to lose something that they didn't want to lose.

When I'm self hosting something and that thing gets breached/hacked/owned it's
going to be _huge_ for _me_ because I and/or my company are going to lose
something that we didn't want to lose.

I don't believe I can keep my stuff much safer than the big guys, though the
point about Slack having a massive target is a good one. Maybe that makes it
less secure?

I really don't know what's better for us in the case.

~~~
sgehly
Really depends on if you're a target yourself. If someone is trying to target
you specifically, use Slack as it's much harder. If you're not a target and
are worried about Slack in general and have the budget to run your own stuff,
do that.

------
Xoros
I think the point is much "do I trust a third party service ?" not regarding
the techs involved.

I read a story from a blogger [1] who was visiting an Airbus facility for an
A350 presentation and when he came back in plane, his neighbor, an Airbus
sensitive contractor, was editing internal documents on a Chromebook using
google doc. Yep. No fear.

[1] [https://korben.info/vous-proteger-de-lespionnage-
industriel-...](https://korben.info/vous-proteger-de-lespionnage-industriel-
cest-bien-vous-assurer-que-vos-partenaires-le-sont-aussi-cest-mieux.html)

------
arikr
It seems like Quip, the document service, should be a much bigger concern:

Based on their security practices document, they seem to store documents
_unencrypted_ on their servers. It's encrypted in transit, sure, but not in
storage? I was shocked when I found out.

[https://help.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?fil...](https://help.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=0150M000003kuXGQAY)

At least Slack encrypts data at rest
[https://slack.com/security](https://slack.com/security)

------
SOSam
Have you tried Semaphor from SpiderOak? We provide a secure Slack alternative
designed using our No Knowledge architecture--meaning that we (SpiderOak) know
nothing about the encrypted data you store on our servers. This approach
allows a third party to host the data, making it way more convenient from an
operations standpoint. Slack provides convenience, but it severely lacks in
security.

------
thinkingkong
Because its convenient and easy to use.

------
misterrobot
Weird, this post appears to have been nuked from orbit. What happened?

~~~
pvg
Well, I flagged it and I imagine others did too. It's not an 'Ask HN' it's
'Yell my opinion at HN while pretending to ask something'. Which isn't that
great.

~~~
misterrobot
You're kind of right. At the same time, the comments appear to be answering
the question, so...

~~~
misterrobot
But, perhaps more relevant, the post doesn't say "flagged" on my end (which
I'm pretty sure they do when they're flagged).

~~~
pvg
It has to be flagged enough to get that tag. As to 'commenters are
commenting', that's not the criterion for what makes a good post. You're
basically trying to stir up a silly fight. Sure, that gets upvotes and
comments. It's still bad.

~~~
misterrobot
Hm, ok. Would it have been OK if I hadn't posted it under "Ask HN"? Surely
this site supports sharing opinions like this one in some contexts -- it's not
like this was a political shitpost or something. Right?

~~~
pvg
Probably but the result would have likely been similar. The standard is
supposed to be a bit higher than 'isn't a political shitpost'. If you have
something interesting to say about this, you can always write it up as a blog
post and submit that. If you just want to vent a bit, it's probably not going
to get too far as a post.

------
feborges
You could say the same about using Windows.

------
segmondy
Php is more secure than C.

~~~
fpoling
This is so only for the core language with no libraries. API provided by PHP
until recently typically provided convince over any notion of safety leading
to terrible bugs.

For example, it is hard with C API for databases or templates to get SQL
injection or XSS bugs. With PHP it is trivial and such usage still simpler
than safer versions.

------
mugsie
A selection of reasons I have heard.

\- Because self hosted HipChat / IRC / XMPP / is not cool enough.

\- Because we are all supposed to use Lync / Skype for Business, but it sucks
on OSX / Linux / in general.

\- Because we are a small team, and maintaining a chat server is too much for
us.

\- Because we don't know (or want to know) how Slack works.

\- Because shiney, such giffy, such memes.

\- Because its free.

\- Because my software engineers don't know how to connect to IRC

There is varying levels of good and bad reasons in there. (personally I am
still a irrsi / IRC person, but I fully acknowledge I am not in the majority
anymore)

