“Are cloud storages secure?

Hello dear readers! From the title of this article, you realized that we will talk about the current topic today - Internet security. In connection with recent events (more on them below), it is very important to have an idea of ​​what we are dealing with. In particular, this applies to cloud storages (or "clouds"), of which a large number have now bred.

Where did it all start?

I got interested in cloud storage just recently. In search of the easiest way to transfer files from laptop to tablet without connecting one device to another, I came to the conclusion that "clouds" is what I need. My choice fell on . Why?

• Firstly, you do not need to download any program to your laptop (access is through a Yandex account).
• Secondly, it is provided free of charge up to 10 GB (this is quite enough for me).
• Thirdly, there is a very convenient application for the tablet (which simplifies working with the "cloud").

I could use other services, such as Dropbox or Google Drive, but Yandex.Disk was familiar to me, and therefore I had little doubt about the choice.

Do you use cloud storage? And what do you know about their safety?

So, when choosing one or another cloud service, many pay attention only to the amount of memory that is provided for free. But you should look elsewhere...

For example, Dropbox, which is one of the most popular storage sites with over 175 million users, does not encrypt your files when you upload them to the cloud. If you want, you must encrypt information yourself using third-party programs. In contrast to Dropbox, I will mention the SpiderOak service, which is not very popular, but uses its own information encryption system.

The Yandex.Disk mentioned above also does not take much care of user data - there is no encryption there. Therefore, when choosing which cloud storage to work with, first of all find out whether this service encrypts data or not.

Of the most secure "clouds", in addition to SpiderOak, I also note Wuala, which gives 5 GB of free space for free.

Fine! We have chosen a more or less safe service. But is it worth relying on it 100%? Or does a small risk of information leakage still exist?

A few months ago, a major scandal erupted in the global community over the fact that a former employee of the US National Security Agency, Edward Snowden, said that US intelligence agencies had access to the servers of all major companies (including Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft). And in this way they gained access to the personal data of almost any inhabitant of the planet.

After all, we all use Android smartphones (Android is a child of Google), computers with Windows installed (a Microsoft product), Gmail, etc. According to Snowden, any means of communication is a hole through which our personal data leaks to the special services.

Since the US government has not officially denied this information, and Snowden himself has been declared almost enemy No. 1, it is worth assuming that everything he told is true. And this is something to think about...

There is no need to think that the NSA and the US CIA are now closely watching you while you are studying, reading this article and at the same time chatting on VKontakte with your best friend. If you are not an international terrorist, they don't care about you.

But it is worthwhile to understand that the special services of the whole world have similar methods of work. And if only the United States exposed it, then there is no guarantee that the special services of other countries, including Russia, are not doing the same. Russian Internet companies (VKontakte, Yandex, Mail, Odnoklassniki) are a tasty morsel, because, having access to their servers, you can know almost everything about any inhabitant of our country.

Again, I'm not talking about the fact that you are being monitored every minute. As long as you do not pose a threat to the national security of the country (I hope it will not come to this), no one cares about you. But if we assume that purely theoretically there is access to the personal information of each of us, then purely theoretically this information may leak into the public domain. And, again, purely theoretically, personal information may be in the wrong hands.

Why am I? While there is even the slightest possibility that your personal information may appear in the public domain on the Internet, you should not rely 100% on the protection of your information in postal services (Mail, Gmail, Yandex), social networks (Facebook, Odnoklassniki, VKontakte) and cloud storages (even including those that use encryption).

Let's see what the experts of information security companies say about this.

Andrey Komarov, director of international projects, audit and consulting at Group-IB, says that it is desirable to minimize the use of cloud storage for storing important information.

Sergey Komarov, head of the anti-virus development department at Doctor Web, warns that the use of cloud storage is based on trust in some other party. All the user can do is read the license agreement and trust that the company will abide by it. But if you are concerned about the privacy of your data, then the only way to ensure protection is to store it where no one will have access to it.

Denis Bezkorovainy, technical consultant at Trend Micro in Russia and the CIS, says that protecting user data in cloud storage is the responsibility of the users themselves.

Sergey Lozhkin, an expert at Kaspersky Lab, advises encrypting data before uploading it to the cloud storage.

What follows from all of the above?

1. Never store important information in the "clouds" (for example, passwords for accessing electronic wallets). The best place to store your data is in a handwritten notepad or one that no one else has access to.

2. If you still need to upload an important file to the cloud service, then before doing this, encrypt it. The easiest way is to create an archive with a complex password. As complex as it gets!

3. The best way to use the "clouds" is to store movies, music or e-books there, which are already in the public domain. In this regard, cloud services are very useful, because over the years every computer has accumulated a lot of music, movies and other content that is “sorry” to delete. Upload them to the cloud and free up space on your computer! And if 10 GB on Yandex.Disk is not enough for you, then no one bothers you to register in several services at once and use their capabilities to the maximum.

Some users do not think about the security of cloud storage by uploading important documents, passwords and personal photos there. Of course, it is unlikely that it is your data that will be leaked to intruders, but it is better to play it safe. TO NOT REGRET THEN...