These days, hearing about people who had their accounts hacked or their personal information stolen is becoming a more common occurrence. Malware is on the rise, and hackers out there are taking advantage of users who are careless when it comes to online security. This is partly why many people resisted the concept of the cloud when it first came to be. Ironically, many of those people are probably already using the cloud, even though they don’t realize it.
Lots of online services, from email storage and notes, apps, file storage and archiving, are already cloud-based. With so many options, there will come a time when you’ll forget where you stored a specific file or message. You could search all of your apps and accounts manually–which is infinitely harder when you’re on your mobile–or you could just fire up CloudMagic, a cloud-searching app which we covered earlier.
Image credit: Internet Evolution
But being able to find stuff isn’t really what makes people wary of cloud computing. What intimidates most people is the issue of security and how storing data in some invisible and amorphous cloud takes away some of their control. It makes users feel vulnerable, especially since there’s no such a thing as a 100%, completely secure cloud. If security and privacy are your primary concerns, it might be helpful to know that you have more control than you realize.
First of all, there are a lot of virtual security options available for downloading and uploading that will keep your cloud work private and away from the prying eyes of nefarious types who spend their time looking for unsecured feeds and connections. Setting up protection is relatively easy and, in most cases, absolutely affordable.
Second, remember that passwords are your best friends. By now, you should know that it’s important to password-protect everything if you can (even the newest iPhones require fingerprint scanning to unlock it). A useful tool that you can use to check the strength of your passwords is Microsoft’s password checker. In addition, you can set up password protection for individual programs and even individual files, too. It’s definitely worth the extra 5 seconds to type in a password if it keeps things more secure.
If you’re still on the fence about the cloud, don’t be. For one thing, the prices being charged by cloud providers don’t cost a premium anymore. Developers and service providers are also more conscientious about security and privacy and getting those things right, so there’s little to worry about on that end as well. Cloud storage has been making waves since 2012, and although it may not be perfect for everyone, it has become the viable option for most.
VIA [ Tech Crunch ]
