Users of the Slack chat app within organizations are likely familiar with the Slackbot account that helps to notify about various messages in the system, such as alerting that a chat room has not been used for a long time and should be archived.
Tom McKay, a former journalist for Gizmodo (now with the IT Brew newsletter website), revealed that when he left Gizmodo in 2022, he changed his Slack account name to “SIackbot” using an icon that is similar to the actual Slackbot, with slight differences in the smile and frown on the face. He managed to evade detection by G/O Media’s admin for several months before the account was finally closed.
McKay cleverly named himself “SIackbot” with a special character ‘o’ to distinguish it from the real Slackbot account. Not only that, but he also sent funny messages to former colleagues, pretending to be trapped in a computer and chatting with them through the bot.
In organizations that have centralized employee account management systems, when an employee leaves, all accounts are automatically closed according to the policy. However, in some cases, including G/O Media, admins have to manually close accounts, allowing McKay’s mischief to successfully go unnoticed.
Source: The Verge
TLDR: Former Gizmodo journalist Tom McKay changed his Slack username to “SIackbot” after leaving the company in 2022, fooling G/O Media’s admin for several months before the account was finally closed.
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