One of the worst things you can do as an employee is un-securely store your company’s corporate data on Cloud based systems. While it doesn’t seem to be the case considering how Cloud services advertise their ‘security’ and ‘data integration’ features, the fact is that as Cloud technologies are evolving, so is the threat landscape. Dropbox, for instance, has over 200 million users, and is seen as potentially the best Cloud platform. However, let us overview some of the risks involved when you store corporate data on Cloud services; such as Dropbox.
Data Theft
Lack of oversight can result in data theft, and this is even more prevalent in corporate matters. For instance, if Dropbox is installed on a corporate system, then the employees that access it can do so with their personal devices as well, which can be from anywhere including coffee shops, public places, at a friend’s place, and so on. Hence, the chances of data being shared or stolen only increase when accessing such corporate data on remote systems.
Data Loss
Dropbox, like other Cloud services, may backup or may not backup your corporate files when they were last modified from employee devices. This lack of visibility in movement can result in the end point data being lost or compromised. Subsequently, there are chances that Dropbox may not be able to restore the more recent changes, and in some cases, any version of the files that were modified.
Data Corruption
Data integrity is very crucial when it comes to corporate and confidential data. However, Dropbox, like any other Cloud service, does not have data integrity assurance implemented, which means that any data corruption that occurs will leave your files redundant with no compensation. 1 in every 1500 files can get corrupted on Cloud networks, according to CERN.
Additionally, Dropbox doesn’t track when users view a file and at what times. This is another major issue because you can’t trace the activity that led to a file being created, modified, and then deleted.
While Cloud based systems are definitely the way forward, certain security and data integration policies need to be implemented that reduce the challenges involved. For corporate data, it is always best to deploy applications that allow the in-house IT department or outside provider to control data security and integration. INCS uses and recommends several products that address these concerns.
