Service outages, application access errors, and security hiccups – that’s exactly what we’ve seen happen in recent months with cloud storage providers Dropbox, YouSendIt, and Box. All were reported to have experienced unexpected issues:
- - May: During prime East Coast business hours (7:00-9:00am), Box customers were unable to access their stored documents
- - June: YouSendIt customers suffered hours of unexpected downtime, citing service disruptions and problems both sending and receiving files
- - July: Dropbox users started receiving spam on dedicated Dropbox email addresses, leading the firm to investigate a potential security breach
- - Today: Dropbox confirmed a security breach
Perhaps Eric Chiu, founder of HyTrust, Inc., a virtualized infrastructure security and management vendor said it best to TechTarget, calling Dropbox “the poster child” for an application that’s infiltrated the enterprise with huge security implications.
Osterman Research, in a recent research report “The Need for Enterprise-Grade File Sharing and Synchronization” found that 49% of organizations believe the problems created by these tools are about as serious as they were 12 months ago, but 42% reported they are more serious.
Before putting your data on the line and exposing it to a potential security glitch or exposing your users to unnecessary usage issues, you must weigh the risks and benefits of a particular provider. And, don’t overlook the hefty regulatory implications if a security snafu hinders your compliance with HIPAA, SOX, and other data privacy mandates.
Many organizations are turning to enterprise-class solutions such as Accellion. While we offer the flexibility of public, private, and hybrid cloud deployments, 80 percent of our enterprise customers go the private cloud route – benefitting from around-the-clock availability, security, and confidentiality of company information.
Related posts:
- iCloud, you Cloud, we all can Cloud. Let’s minimize data security risks, too.
- In the Cloud, Outside the Cloud…Securing Your Information
- Cloud Killer – Qu’est-ce Que C’est
Tags: Box, Breach, Cloud, Confirmed, Downtime, Dropbox, Enterprise Grade, File Sharing, security, Security risk 2012, Sync, TechTarget, YouSendIt
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Good article but the main reason I choose Kitedrive is that my docs are encrypted BEFORE they go to the cloud.Unlike Dropbox et al.I am moving some stuff over to Skydrive as we speak but this is personal, non-critical things.
I still think Kitedrive lags in terms of overall functionality to the likes of Dropbox but maybe this is the price to pay-less bells and whistles but security knowing nobody at Accellion can see my private docs.
Cloud storage simply introduces risk of data leaks, and companies paying to increase their risk is bad business? I wouldn’t use cloud storage facilities on offer today for corporate files, or my personal information for that matter. Cloud storage are incredibly attractive targets for hackers, so further breaches are just a matter of time.
We would only use an enterprise file mobility solution that kept the files within the organisation, preferably without duplicating the file storage. We are running a trial with a product called Asdeqdocs which works in this way. There may also be others solutions.
Reduce the risk, avoid cloud storage. Simple.
Thanks for commenting. For organizations that want to avoid public & hybrid cloud solutions we offer scalable private cloud options. Our private cloud deployment ensures the availability, integrity and confidentiality of information. Accellion offers solutions located inside a company’s firewall, private clouds are owned and controlled by the IT organization allowing information to be solely managed by enterprises rather than delegated to third party cloud providers. For more information: http://www.accellion.com/contact-us