FTP – Failure To Provision for File Transfer

For many organizations FTP is the only provision made for file transfer, yet FTP is actually a failure to provision.  Why is it that businesses do not think twice about provisioning their employees with a phone, an email account, a desk, a chair, yet provisioning an employee to send files is an after thought at best?

FTP has to rank among the worst business tools for file transfer.  Other than the occasional software developer is there really anyone who likes FTP?  FTP is not easy to use for business users, requires a lot of hand holding by IT, and the lack of file cleanup creates security risks for organizations.  Here are some tweets from the past 24 hours on the topic of FTP and the lack of love thereof …

I have ftp locked in a small dungeon underneath my apartment. Occasionally I throw it scraps of chicken.

Have to go into work and ftp is still acting up. Today will be so fun :-(

I just checked the FTP log. You downloaded “that what we don’t speak of in public”. The shame.

Just once I’d like to open an ftp client without it needing to update itself…

Real men don’t do backups, they just put their work on an FTP site and let the world mirror it. Linus Torvalds

If my FTP connection gets a bit faster I might be able to launch this site by christmas.

I couldn’t make this stuff up even if I tried.

Few would question that being able to make a phone call, or being able to send an email is considered an essential business tool, so too is the ability to easily and securely send a file.  Provisioning employees with the ability to send files securely is not a nice-to-have but a need-to-have so that we can get our jobs done and stay out of trouble.

Need to be reminded of the troubles you can get into with FTP? Here are some earlier blog postings on the security concerns with FTP:

• Good Ole FTP Just Doesn’t Cut it Anymore
• Top 3 File Transfer Mistakes
• Climategate – Stolen Emails Found on Public FTP Server, Climate Research Unit in Hot Water?

So next time someone says that FTP is available for file transfer – remind them that FTP stands for Failure To Provision for file transfer.

About Paula Skokowski

Paula Skokowski has written 66 post in this blog.

Paula is the Chief Marketing Officer at Accellion.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 7:40 pm and is filed under Accellion, Data Security, FTP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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