The Dangers of Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Other File Sync Apps

If like millions of internet users, you are inclined to using Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive or any other consumer-grade file sync software and cloud applications; you might want to read this.

The applications you use to back up your data online and synchronize it makes you vulnerable. They make your personal and business data prone to huge security threats. Your business data can easily blow out far and wide without heed being paid to the nature of the information that is being shared and with whom. Moreover, studies show a count of more than 7 MILLION Dropbox accounts that have been a victim of hacking which gives cybercriminals a way to intrude into the company’s network.

This is even more crucial if your company data has finance-related information or information about medical or other sensitive/confidential data. There is a direct breach of security and compliance laws with these online storage applications.

91% of industry experts, as per a Cloud Security Alliance survey, mark data breach and data loss as severely critical threats to cloud security.

Here are a few types of dangers that Dropbox and other online sync or cloud drives bring to your business.

Sidestepped data security

Like every other business, the IT professionals in your company have put a lot of effort and time into the planning and implementation of your security strategy. Some professionals even use extra layers of security to protect the data, but when pushed to cloud FSS solutions, all the security protection measures turn upside down and completely dodge your protection controls. If your company has data stored in cloud storage or Dropbox, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the exposure to data loss increases.

Easy data theft

Cloud-based applications allow employees to transfer any data out of the organization easily. A data breach happens so swiftly that you barely get time to do something reach, even as an IT professional.

The recent big example is of the Lyft lawsuit. A California-based car transportation mobile app company ‘Lyft’ filed a claim against a former executive named Travis VanderZanden in November 2014. It claimed that the accused had conveyed some of the most sensitive data/documents to his personal Dropbox account just before a few months and weeks he left to join the top competitor, Uber.

It’s not only you who owns the data anymore

Your data can be accessed and retrieved by the application-as-a-service vendor when in the cloud. In fact, your company’s data is now accessible to a third-party vendor, and more often than not, the contract or agreement revealing the policies on when and how your data can be used on the application servers is missing.

You and your employees expose the company data to notable dangers by moving it to any cloud storage. For example, any kind of Patient Health Information (PHI) floated through a cloud-based FSS service could violate HIPAA regulations. The risk is likewise there for companies that store financial and other data that might harm a law and can expose your business to HIPAA, FINRA, SOX, and other compliance violations.