Introduction: Slack Integrations Can Improve your Workflow

Slack is one of the world’s most popular team collaboration tools. Its channel based messaging system is easy to use and keeps your email from getting too cluttered. Outside of its core communication functions, Slack is also known for its massive (and growing) library of integrations that allow companies to conduct daily operations from within Slack itself.

Using Slack integrations can save companies tons of time and resources by allowing them to centralize information into one hub and automate certain tasks. Slack can act as a control panel for your entire organization. There are integrations for almost anything you can think of. One of our favorite examples is BirthdayBot which automatically sends users Slack messages when their coworkers have birthdays or anniversaries!

Using Slack for Security and Compliance

One particularly useful way to leverage integrations is using Slack as a hub for your security and compliance needs. There are a variety of apps in the Slack Marketplace that help companies improve their cybersecurity. Slack has even published an article on using Slack for distributed security alerting to lower response time.

There's a ton of security-focused Slack apps out there, so we aggregated our top 5 into this list. Each of these apps serves a unique purpose and solves a different part of the security puzzle. Here are the 5 best Slack integrations for security and compliance!

Best App for Employee Training: Haekka

Given that 88% of breaches happen because of human error, one can easily make the argument that proper employee training is the most important aspect of security and compliance. Having all the security controls in the world does not matter if members of your organization are not following cybersecurity best practices. It’s also easier to prevent breaches instead of responding to them after they occur. That’s why we created Haekka, an employee onboarding and training app fully built into Slack!

Haekka’s Slack integration allows people to train in the app they are already using on a daily basis. Switching back and forth between apps lowers productivity, and a traditional learning management system does not resemble real work. Haekka ships with a large course library and allows admins to write their own custom training.

Haekka is particularly useful for compliance training such as HIPAA and SOC 2. It automatically assigns and tracks training while generating evidence for auditors. If a user does not complete their assigned training, Haekka will send them a Slack message as a reminder. If you want to minimize human risk at your company, schedule a demo of Haekka today!

Best App for Securing Slack Workspaces: DBot by Demisto

Although Slack is most commonly seen as a messaging platform, the large number of bots and integrations with other tools available allow Slack to act as a de-facto operating system. Slack apps allow you to automate workflows and make your organization more efficient by utilizing a centralized hub. However, utilizing Slack as an operating system carries risks. Hackers can send malicious files or URLs into a Slack instance to compromise an entire organization. DBot is a great way to secure your organization's workspace!
DBot works by automatically scanning channels for malicious URLs, files, and IP Addresses. If DBot detects any security risks, it sends messages to the users within said channel. This prevents employees from clicking risky links or downloading files that could compromise their Slack. Companies are using Slack for an increasing amount of critical functions, and DBot is here to keep them secure!

Best App for Security Management: ​​Pagerduty

One of the most important aspects of security and compliance is security monitoring and incident response. The sooner an official is aware of a potential breach the faster they can respond and mitigate any impacts. Pagerduty makes security monitoring more efficient by managing on-call operations, automating incident responses, and handling security support. Pagerduty’s Slack integration allows you to do it all from one place!

Conducting your security monitoring from within Slack allows your organization to respond to incidents much faster. It also makes delegating responsibilities simpler since Slack already handles communication. Many security and incident monitoring workflows require employees to manually use several apps to scan for unauthorized system access. Since handling security incidents is such a crucial part of compliance, one should definitely improve that process with Pagerduty. Haekka offers Pagerduty’s Security Training for Engineers in Slack, so be sure to check that out as well!

Best App for Finding Vulnerabilities: Bugcrowd

Finding vulnerabilities in your organization before hackers do is one of the most challenging parts of cybersecurity. It can be tricky to scour your own systems for weaknesses from an unbiased perspective, but it is essential to do so. That’s why Bugcrowd is so useful. Bugcrowd allows organizations to crowdsource security by offering up bug bounties. Those bug bounties incentivize ethical hackers to find vulnerabilities in systems before malicious parties do. It enables organizations to gain insight into their security operations from several sets of eyes.

Bugcrowds Slack integration automatically notifies developers whenever a bug is discovered. This allows security teams to patch vulnerabilities faster and mitigate any data security risks. Bugcrowd also offers a variety of penetration testing options for companies to see how secure they really are. If you want to find hidden vulnerabilities before hackers do, check out Bugcrowd today!

Best App for Website Management: UptimeBot

Keeping your website running smoothly is a huge part of security and compliance. SOC 2 has availability as one of its five trust services criteria, and website uptime is becoming an increasingly important priority for customers and business partners alike. A stable website is a crucial aspect of data loss prevention. Websites have a lot of moving parts, and monitoring all of them at once can be difficult. Similar to security incidents, time is of the essence when dealing with website issues. UptimeBot is a Slack plugin that alerts relevant Slack channels whenever a website incident occurs.

UptimeBot has a large library of web activities that it can automatically detect and alert employees about. These include a website being down, longer load times, a domain is close to expiring, and much more. UptimeBot also checks your website across multiple locations to ensure it's working everywhere. Being able to manage your website’s availability from Slack is a great way to simplify your IT load. Check out Uptimebot at https://uptime.bot!

Conclusion:

Slacks large library of integrations enables it to be so much more than a messaging platform. Choosing the right tools can save your team lots of time and money by offering power users advanced functionality. Using Slack for security and compliance is a great way to empower your organization's security team to protect your users. 
If you want to learn more about cybersecurity and compliance feel free to reach out to our founders. Haekka was founded by two experts with over 20 years of experience in keeping companies secure! Go to https://www.haekka.com/contact-us for more information.