Crazy Cloud Capability

Welcome back ready, this is another CYBR 650 post.  This post comes just one week after the last one where I talked about stolen account credentials and what you can do to protect your accounts in case your login info is stolen.  This week, I'm going to change it up a little bit and talk about something that is relatively new, the cloud.

tl;dr

Cloud technology has been around for several years, but personal use has not been practical until recently.  I'll talk about a few practical options for personal use, or even family use of cloud solutions and share some of my personal experiences.

What is the Cloud?

In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions, the cloud is a computer that belongs to someone else.  Systems providing cloud servers are generally owned by organizations like Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, and provide services to other organizations or individuals. 

Personally, I use cloud services from both Google and Microsoft.  Below is a handy-dandy table for showing the services I regularly use from each provider:

Google	Microsoft
E-mail (Gmail, personal)	E-mail (Outlook, education)
File storage (Drive)	File storage (OneDrive)
Calendar	Collaboration (Teams)
Lists (Google Keep)

Many people have had a free e-mail account from someone like Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail for years.  I remember when I started using Gmail, the storage was something like 500 megabytes.  But it continually kept growing.  Now, my Google account has 15 gigabytes of free storage spread across every G-Suite application.  Here's where it gets great...I get an e-mail with an attachment sent to my Gmail account.  I see that it is something I want to hang onto, but I need to make sure I know where it is and that it doesn't get buried in my e-mail account.  Conveniently, there is an icon on the attachment allowing me to save it to my Google Drive.  I leave my house to meet up with a coworker for lunch.  I think they might find the attachment I just saved useful, so I use the Drive app on my smartphone to show them.  They enjoy it, so I send it over to them using Gmail, or even the Hangouts (Google's instant messenger, also cloud) channel we have for just such an occasion.

Moving to Microsoft

While my primary e-mail is still my Gmail account provided by Google, I really don't use my Drive storage like I used to.  The main reason for this is my use of Microsoft 365, formerly Office 365.  Just in case you're unaware, Office 365 is a cloud-based productivity suite.  You've used Office products, right?  Imagine that, but now it's cloud based.  I remember when Office was very expensive, and I relied on my student discount to get the latest version.  Now, Microsoft 365 is a subscription service.  For about a $100 a year, I have full access to Office products, some of which I wouldn't normally because of different versions of Office (Home, Pro, etc.).  Not only do I have access to all the productivity software I need, I also have 1 terabyte of cloud storage at my disposal.  This is the best part...my 100 bucks allows me to share these same benefits with 5 people in my family!  See more about it here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/explore-microsoft-365-for-home

Is it safe?

That answer is simple...it depends.  Keeping your cloud accounts safe is the same as keeping any other account safe.  I talked last week about multi-factor authentication.  Within OneDrive, there is an area called Personal Vault.  The Personal Vault is designed with added security, either stronger authentication or a second method to verify your identity (multi-factor).  The added layer of security is for more sensitive files, plus the secondary authentication is a way to make sure those files are only accessed by me.

In order to keep your files safe, Microsoft encrypts your data while it resides on the server.  Additionally, transportation security protocols are used while you access your data.  This keeps it secure both when in use and when you're not actively using it.  Here is some additional reading about how your information is protected: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/how-onedrive-safeguards-your-data-in-the-cloud-23c6ea94-3608-48d7-8bf0-80e142edd1e1

Other providers...

I have only told you about 2 cloud providers for personal use, Google and Microsoft.  Others include Dropbox, Apple iCloud, and Bitcasa.  One I would like to tell you about for sure is Amazon.  If you are an Amazon Prime subscriber, you get unlimited photo storage.  That is a pretty fantastic benefit along with everything else Prime provides.  Read more here: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Photos/b?ie=UTF8&node=13234696011