Slack Gets Hacked as Startup Technologies Become Targets
On Friday, Slack, the communications startup, said it had been breached by hackers. That made it the second young company to step forward this week - following Twitch, the hugely popular video streaming service - and disclose it was hacked.
The breaches at the two companies were not as severe as recent attacks at major retailers like Home Depot, or at banks like JPMorgan Chase, but they underscore how young companies are just as much of a target.
Breaches are becoming a kind of rite of passage for fledgling tech companies. If they gain enough momentum with users, chances are they will also become a target for hackers looking to steal, and monetize, the vast personal information they store on users, like email addresses and passwords. Such data can fetch as much or in some cases more on the black market than a credit card number.
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