Slack has revealed a raft of new security upgrades as it looks to provide a secure way for businesses to share and collaborate online.
The popular messaging app, which now has over over 10 million daily active users worldwide, has unveiled a number of updates aimed at making sure company data stays safe on corporate networks.
The new features give admins and security teams the opportunity to better secure their workspaces to stop the leaking of valuable or confidential data, but also bring two-factor authentication for mobile devices for the first time.
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When it comes to the latter, Slack users logging in on their smartphones can now use secondary authentication methods including biometic identification (such as FaceID or fingerprint scans) or a password code emailed or sent via SMS.
The company says this feature will mean that only authorised users can access a company's workspace and access the files within, and also prevent employees copying messages or files onto unauthorized devices.
Slack says the new features will be especially useful for admins at businesses that deal with sensitive data every day, such as financial services or healthcare. It's also introducing new domain whitelisting tools for admins to define which workspaces can be accessed within a corporate network, meaning employees shouldn't be able to sign in to unapproved workspaces.
Organisations can also choose to restrict downloading files and copying messages onto mobile devices to ensure confidential information doesn't make its way out to unauthorised individuals.
"These new features are designed for leaders who want to modernize and improve how their organizations work, while maintaining compliance with their industry- or company-specific security policies," the company said in a blog post announcing the news.
"It’s all part of our ongoing commitment to providing IT leaders and enterprise admins with the tools they need to deploy Slack to thousands of employees in a safe, secure and centralized way."
And that's not all, as Slack says it also has more upgrades coming soon as it continues to present itself as secure enterprise platform.
Among the future releases are a new remote wipe open to clear a user's message and chat history if a device is stolen, set to arrive later this year. There will also be jailbreak detection to spot if a user is accessing Slack via an unsafe device, and the option to pick which specific browser should be used to open links within Slack.
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