How fast to lose business or work: cloud storage

In our first article, it was about what threatens careless handling of the stick. Today, however, replaced by USB flash drive come cloud storage like Dropbox, «Yandex. Disc "and others. You can use them in a couple of clicks to copy any data to the Network and to make them available to anyone.

The clouds are too good to refuse them: they are comfortable, easy to use, work through any web browser on any smartphone. But these features are fraught with potential problems which should be taken into account to you personally and your company.

How not to lose their job or business because of an annoying error or malicious drain of important information? This conversation today.

It is really so serious?

according to the report company InfoWatch, on the Web (and clouds as well) accounted for a quarter of all the leaks in the world. No other leakage channel can not boast such rapid growth of their quantity.

This is no accident. There are three key factors which must be considered when working with cloud storage:

1. Technological immaturity. Like any new system, cloud services periodically occur serious shoals:

Failure Dropbox management system led to the compromise of these 25 million users. Online storage service without warning and obvious reason has disabled the password protection to access files of its users. As a result, data is available to everyone within four hours.

2. Novelty, which entails a sad fact: developers of information security solutions themselves bezopasnik simply do not have time for them.

A survey conducted by the Ponemon Institute, showed that even a 80% IT-services employees aware of how much corporate information is stored in the cloud, not to mention the fact that it for details.

3. Mass combined with ease of use also adds tranquility. The more massive is the service, the more stupid mistakes admit its users, and hackers are on it are beginning to pay attention to:

That there is a recent history with photos of nude celebrities, stolen from the accounts to iCloud. Yes, hackers broke into the accounts, but the photos are something people are laid back voluntarily. Also do not forget about the millions of Google email accounts, "Yandex" and Mail.ru, whose data have been laid out in the public domain. How do we get access to the cloud? That's right, through the mail.

And if in your cloud not only personal photos? At the end of the day, if you're not a celebrity, your photos are not wanted. If there is any serious financial documents from work or your customer base? Maybe you even have decided in your company to use the latest technology, and now all of your business depends on the cloud?

Those who do not want to pay too high a price for convenience, we offer a short guide to action.

What to do?

If you are not a business owner and are not responsible for information security in the company, then you will be quite enough to just "cloud-etiquette" and a bit of common sense:

• Separate work and personal space in the cloud services. Do not keep all mixed up and do not synchronize the folder with your personal data on your computer.
• Clean regularly working folders of files that you no longer need constant access.
• If you are still working with a serious information through cloud storage, use available means of protection. Smartphone? Most likely, the application can be password protected. Often use other people's computers or public Wi-Fi - google about two-factor authentication.
• Monitor a list of devices that have access to your cloud. Stopped using smartphone, given for temporary use to someone? Disconnect the device from the cloud account.
• And finally, do not submit to the cloud is really important data (corporate or personal). Of course, you're very attentive and careful, but... just do not do it. And if it does not, use additional forms of protection, such as encrypt them.

If you own your own business, answer or just worried about the security of information in the company, then make sure that the company has been found suitable data protection tool, which will allow:

• Differentiate access to the cloud storage up to a computer and employee. Someone on a post, you must have access to everything. To some clouds on the job is not desired at all. It is desirable to be able to distinguish between the right to the level of individual computers and accounts departments.
• Select the types of files that can be uploaded to the cloud. It makes sense to prohibit the transfer to the cloud of certain file types, if you know any specific formats in which sensitive information is stored.
• Allow to work only with one specific cloud storage, which do you trust or that you have a corporate rate.
• Conduct logging that employees are sent to the cloud. If something happens, you can find out the details.
• Finally, really encrypt important information before sending it to the cloud. This is one of the most reliable methods of information protection. Main - Make sure that it is easy and transparent to your employees.

In combination with a means of control over flash drives and cloud storage encryption ensures sufficient for most companies the degree of protection of the information, and therefore, money and business.