What Should You Store “In-the-cloud?”
Cloud computing is here to stay, and is a trend that will evolve and grow in the coming decade. But we are still pretty early in the hype cycle, and the market (and many of the associated technologies) is immature.
You want to take advantage of the economies-of-scale and the “elasticity” of a pay-as-you-go model. For many businesses and many individuals, this approach makes complete sense. But there is always the question of security. And in the highly-commoditized world of online storage, security is often sacrificed in order to offer competitive pricing.
There have been a few stories in the news, of late, that are pretty alarming. Just this week, DropBox had a security snafu that resulted in all DropBox accounts being completely unprotected for about four hours. At a networking event last night, I met someone who uses DropBox for his photography business. He was relatively unconcerned about the security issue, as the data that he posts is not confidential. It is, however, his copyrighted work.
There are other online storage services that have suffered from security issues. Similar problems have been reported in Google Docs and other services. And these same services are often rated by customers as inexpensive, convenient and easy to use.
So, should you stay away from cloud storage? Absolutely not! Just keep in mind that there is a place for everything. My rule of thumb is this: don’t store anything in a free or inexpensive online storage service that you wouldn’t post in a public forum. For confidential business files, protected personal information, intellectual property and the like, consider these questions before you make a decision about a cloud service:
1. Are the files stored in an encrypted format?
2. How are file permissions set up?
3. What is the company’s security track record? Have they had previous security breakdowns and what have they done to address them?
4. “Free” or “cheap” may be worth what you pay for it, in terms of protection.
5. What is the company’s security policy?
6. Are there guarantees for data security and penalties if these are not met?
Cloud-based storage, applications and infrastructure will continue to grow, but the security issues may not currently be keeping up with the growth. It’s important to be a smart consumer until security catches up.
