The Walt Disney Company has decided to halt its usage of the workplace collaboration platform Slack following a significant data breach. The breach, executed by a hacking group known as NullBulge, resulted in the unauthorized release of over a terabyte of sensitive company data, including 44 million Slack messages, 18,800 spreadsheets, and 13,000 PDFs. This data leak encompassed a variety of information, from financial and strategic details to personal identifiable information of employees and customers.

The decision was communicated through an internal memo by Disney's Chief Financial Officer, Hugh Johnston. He indicated that most of the company's departments are already transitioning to alternative "streamlined enterprise-wide collaboration tools," thereby reducing their reliance on Slack by the end of the first quarter of Disney’s fiscal year 2025. Complex use cases are expected to complete the transition a quarter later.

This move comes after the hacking entity published the stolen data online, exploiting vulnerabilities in collaborative coding platforms like GitHub and Hugging Face to spread malicious files. The leaked data also included details about unreleased projects, critical computer code, and a myriad of internal communications.

While Salesforce, the parent company of Slack, did not comment immediately, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff noted the integral security measures in place during a recent interview. He emphasized the importance of collaboration between providers and clients to prevent such breaches, pointing to the need for robust anti-phishing strategies and employee training.

The data breach was initially disclosed in August, and Disney assured investors that it would not materially impact the company's overall operations or financial performance. However, the shift away from Slack has sparked some dissatisfaction among Disney employees, especially due to concerns about potential productivity losses and the challenge of maintaining long-standing integrations and archived content. Many voiced their unhappiness on platforms like Blind, suspecting the company might transition to Microsoft Teams for cost-saving objectives.

Despite moving away from Slack, Disney will continue to use other Salesforce products across various business units, such as sales, service operations, and call centers.