domain | slack.engineering |
summary | **Summary:**
- **Date**: March 7, 2025 - **Reading Time**: 6 minutes - **Authors**: Ian Hoffman and Claire Bowman - **Topic**: Building enterprise search with security and privacy in Slack
Slack's enterprise search feature was built with a focus on maintaining user data security and privacy. Here's how they achieved this:
1. **Audit Logs**: Like many SaaS offerings, Slack provides audit logs to track system activity, helping admins monitor usage and troubleshoot issues.
2. **Search by Indexing**: To protect user privacy, search is performed by indexing data on the client-side rather than querying live data servers.
3. **Data Hashing**: User messages are hashed before being sent for indexing, ensuring data remains unreadable even if intercepted.
4. **End-to-End Encryption**: Slack employs end-to-end encryption to secure user data both in transit and at rest.
5. **Secure Search Indexes**: The search indexes themselves are encrypted and stored securely within Slack's infrastructure.
6. **Privacy by Design**: Slack follows privacy-by-design principles, ensuring user data is only used for the intended purpose of searching messages.
7. **Compliance with Regulations**: Slack adheres to relevant regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA, providing users with control over their data and assuring its protection.
8. **Regular Audits and Testing**: Slack undergoes regular security audits and penetration testing to identify and address potential vulnerabilities.
In summary, Slack's enterprise search was built with a strong emphasis on user privacy and data security, using techniques such as client-side indexing, data hashing, end-to-end encryption, secure storage of indexes, compliance with regulations, and regular security audits. |
title | Home - Engineering at Slack |
description | Home - Engineering at Slack |
keywords | slack, read, search, software, december, audit, logs, november, incidents, service, engineering, blog, privacy, skip, main, content, close |
upstreams |
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downstreams |
slack.dev, x.com, youtube.com, salesforce.com |
nslookup | A 192.0.66.216 |
created | 2024-10-24 |
updated | 2025-05-11 |
summarized | 2025-05-11 |
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