Is DropBox secure?
There is a short story before I get to “Secure Cloud Storage”.
Today my appointments did not join up, which meant a two hour gap around midday. I had the choice to go from the north of the city to Branston and then back to the north of the city or to find somewhere to park up and do some work in the car. As it was a nice day parking up won.
I had a quote to work on and rather than edit it on my iPhone I set up my Lubuntu notebook to use the larger screen. The files I needed for the job are stored in our secure online storage, so I connected my netbook to the Internet using the phone’s personal hotspot – I have a huge data allowance which includes tethering so why not use it.
securely working in the car (Photo of the Day – Clive’s Blog)
Secure Cloud Storage
So here is the answer to the question, I first posed – “Is DropBox secure?”
“Who knows?”
I am constantly asked when I am trying to sell our secure online data protection services, “Why should I pay when I can get online storage for free?”
So below are some of the reasons we use and sell online data storage and protection.
- I cannot decide whether we store our vital company information online for reasons or protection or sharing – both I think are of equal importance to us. But whatever the reasons we use it I have to know our company secrets are safe and secure.
- Protection – our information is safe and not dependent on any item of equipment working. The remote servers are also backed up and have built in redundancy to ensure the maximum availability.
- We can share information wherever we are. It does require an Internet connection but one is usually available. As part of our company plan we have access to two other Internet connections if the main one into our office fails. One of them is a short drive away at another premises -‘allowing us to cope with most situations.
- Our information is secure. A quick Internet search of any of the free online storage providers will provide many stories about their security shortfalls, many caused by staff either not knowing or not following simple company procedures. Our staff and the staff at the data centre are well trained and part of a small local team, so they are conscientious. People connected with our service do not have the option to store your usernames and passwords in Word documents that someone else can then steal.
- Our data is stored in the Uk and subject to UK regulations. If you really wanted to you could go and put your hand on the rack containing the equipment where your data is stored (encrypted and unavailable to anyone who simply stole the equipment.
- The servers use certificate security and require you to have secure passwords. We advise clients to use unique passwords for this service so if your Facebook password is compromised then your data is safe.
- Using our secure cloud storage your username is not your publicly know email address.
- It is green – using a remote data centre reduces our carbon footprint as we no longer have a server running 24/7 but are securely sharing the server with many others.
- We use the service – unlike many companies who will sell you online storage but still use in house servers themselves.
These are just the highlights of our secure online storage – if you operate in ir near Lincolnshire and would like to know more please contact me via the Octagon Technology web site.
