- I've been getting requests from a number of you
to talk about cloud storage here on this channel
so let's talk.
I don't know about you, but over the years
I've used Dropbox, Google Drive, Proton Drive,
Sync and OneDrive.
Although there are scores of other options out there,
as you probably know, and you know what's crazy?
Trusting these companies with our data
may seem like a big risk
but in many cases it's actually safer
than keeping it on your own computer.
Google Drive and Dropbox,
they aren't susceptible to malware,
phishing scams and common thieves like you and I are.
These companies have entire teams
dedicated to maintaining the integrity of their data centers
while you, well, there's probably just one password
standing between me and all the most sensitive data
on your device, you see what I mean?
That doesn't mean we should just trust everyone
and ignore security, obviously.
The goal here is trust reduction.
So which cloud storage providers can we trust?
And if you're already using one,
what steps can you take to ensure
that you have the maximum amount of privacy and security?
Those are the questions we're gonna answer today.
Welcome to All Things Secured, my name's Josh.
And I wanna start with this disclaimer,
I'm approaching this with you right now
from a consumer perspective and not business enterprise.
So for those of you IT folks you'll notice that
I'm skipping over a lot of company admin best practices
in favor of more reasonable trust reduction practices
that the average person can use.
This is just you and me, regular netizens
trying to figure out how not to screw things up
with our online privacy, right?
I'm gonna split this video into two parts.
In the first part, I wanna talk a bit about encryption
and why I recommend certain cloud storage providers.
And then in the second half,
we'll dive into four parts of your cloud storage security
that you have control over
no matter which service you decide to use.
And that last part's important
so make sure you stick around to the end.
Okay, let's dive in.
When comparing all the major cloud storage providers
in the market today, here's the good news.
In my opinion, there's honestly not a bad choice in the mix
for individual consumers.
In every case, you're having to trust that a company
is encrypting the data in transit and keeping it safe
and it's just sitting on their servers.
But since you can't personally audit
those security practices, neither can I,
you have to trust that they're telling you the truth.
And no matter how much you might hate big tech companies
like Google or Microsoft,
I would argue that because of their size,
it would be practically impossible for them
to get away with lying about their security
or encryption practices.
The same can't be said about smaller unknown companies
that may have a slick website and low prices,
but maybe only a team of two to three people
running things behind the scenes that you don't know about.
For this reason, I generally recommend my friends and family
to take advantage of the big players in the market.
These include ones you may already know like Google Drive,
Dropbox and OneDrive, but I would also add smaller,
but still respected companies like SugarSync, IDrive,
pCloud and Proton Drive.
Feel free to add some others in the comments
if you think I'm missing anything here.
I know it sounds like I'm being a little loose
about my recommendations here, and I guess I kind of am,
but that's really only because
I prefer to take control of my data security and encryption
and the four important steps I'm about to share with you
are platform agnostic, which means that they work
for pretty much any of the service providers
that you choose.
If you've made it this far in the video, good for you.
In my opinion, your personal security practices
are often more important than the provider you choose.
What do I mean by that?
Well, the first thing you should do
with any cloud storage account you have
is to create a strong password
and enable two factor authentication or 2-FA for short.
If you've watched enough of my videos,
you know how much I push 2-FA on any account that allows it.
In short 2-FA means that
even if somebody stole your password
or guessed it by brute force,
they still have to provide a second form of authentication
to prove their identity.
This could be a code sent as a text message to your phone
an authenticator app on your phone or a 2-FA key
like this one you see right here.
I have created a whole video playlist
with a bunch of 2-FA tutorials
that you can click here, one of these sides
or finding the description of this video.
It really boils down to this.
It doesn't matter how strong the encryption
these cloud storage companies provide.
If you leave your front door unlocked.
In other words, if you have weak password
and don't use 2-FA,
you present the greatest risk to your data
and not these cloud storage servers.
My second tip is this.
It's a good idea to keep your most sensitive data
in a separate place from your general cloud synced folders.
I have a special encrypted vault backed up into two places
that has all my tax documents,
my digital death file that I've done a video about before
and copies of all my family's legal documentation.
This does not get synced
in any of my cloud storage accounts.
Honestly, if you were to hack into my Google Drive
or Dropbox account, you'd probably be pretty disappointed,
but that doesn't mean that the rest of my data
on my computer isn't valuable enough to protect.
And that's where this third tip comes in handy.
One of the best ways to secure your data in the cloud
is to use a method known as client side encryption.
What this means is that instead of uploading raw data
to Google Drive or Dropbox,
you're actually uploading an encrypted file.
It's like putting your data in a locked safe
where only you know the combination
and then giving that safe over to Google
to put in their locked vault.
So even if somebody did hack into your cloud drive,
all they'll find is another locked safe.
For this I use a service called Boxcryptor.
No, I am an affiliate of Boxcryptor,
which means that if you make a purchase using my link,
they'll give me a small commission.
But for the purposes of an individual user,
they have a free plan that more than works
for what you need.
If you have a difficult time
trusting any of these cloud providers with your data,
something like Boxcryptor is the best solution.
It's a very user-friendly way to build that locked safe
I was just talking about,
and then upload that to Google, OneDrive, Dropbox
or any of those other ones.
Again, I'm just trying to reduce the amount of trust
that I'm giving to one single company.
That right there is the biggest one.
I mean, if you just take away one thing
from a security standpoint that's what I want you to hear,
but I'll finish with one final tip
for those of you who value redundancy.
What happens if Dropbox goes out of business
or somehow loses your data?
This is an unlikely scenario,
but things like this seem impossible
until they actually happen.
I've recently been using
what's known as a cloud management service
to test creating a backup on two different platforms.
So for example, I could have all the files
in my Google Drive account back up to my Dropbox account
and remain synced
so that if something happens with Google Drive,
I still have a copy of all my data on Dropbox.
Now, mind you Google Drive, Dropbox
and all these other cloud storage services
already create redundancy for your protection
so this is admittedly overkill.
But let's say that you wanna migrate
from one cloud storage to another
this would be a great way to do that.
The service I'm testing right now is called cloudHQ
and they offer a free plan for non-business users.
So you can easily sign up and give it a try.
I don't have much experience using their software.
So this isn't an endorsement
as much as it's just letting you know what's out there.
The bottom line is this
choose whatever cloud storage provider
is most convenient for your situation
and do so with confidence,
but always, always take control of your own data security
by enabling 2-FA, partitioning your most sensitive data,
encrypting the data yourself
and if you think it's necessary
creating your own redundancy.
Thanks for watching.
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