What is secure file sharing? And why is it increasingly relevant?
This is the 21st century. The world has become a global village. Thanks to the Internet, data sharing is now easier than ever. There are many channels at our disposal, such as email, social media, cloud-based tools, storage services, you name it.
But with ease also come risks. Snoopers and hackers are rampant. They keep inventing new methods to gain access to the crucial files of their unsuspecting victims.
Thus, secure file transfers are a necessity. As you may well know, files are vulnerable and prone to unauthorized access when shared. You don’t want to compromise sensitive documents, such as those that contain your financial transactions, intellectual property, personal details, and so on.
File sharing, especially within a business setting, must be performed with great caution. As a business, when sending confidential documents that reveal IPOs, company mergers and acquisitions, and other crucial information to a third party, you need to ensure that you do it in a secure manner.
Risks and Problems Associated with File Sharing
File sharing poses a number of risks and has certain setbacks:
- File Size Limits: Most businesses employ email as the primary means of communication and collaboration amongst teams. But while it’s possible to send a secure email using encryption, have you ever tried to send large files via email? You will find that size limits and storage constraints are a problem. To send large files over the internet, you need a more robust solution.
- Malware and Cyber Attacks: Malware and cyber attacks are a serious threat that should not be taken lightly. Entities with malicious intent could impersonate someone you know. They can bamboozle you, making you give up the data or information they need. You may even be misled into downloading malicious files that give them access to your computers and servers.
Once an unauthorized party gains entry into your systems, it may be hard to find out what they’ve collected, how they’ll use it, or with whom they’ve shared it.
- Security Compromises: Some file-sharing software may fail to upload or download files when your firewall is active, thereby forcing you to disable this crucial protection. In doing so, you open yourself up to all sorts of threats.
What Is Secure File Sharing?
Now that you know the risks and limitations that one may encounter when sharing files over the internet, you can infer what secure file sharing entails. It is the sending and receiving of documents using methods that safeguard against unauthorized access by known or unknown third parties.
This begs the question: how can you transfer files online without compromising them? Keep reading to find out.
How to Send Files Securely
Encryption is the way to go when sending and receiving files digitally. Parties that do not have the appropriate decryption key will be denied access. To achieve even greater security, consider zero-knowledge encryption, which is an encryption method whereby the decryption key is known by the sender alone. When you wish to share the encrypted file, the receiver can only commence the download by obtaining the decryption key from you.
To understand the kind of top-level protection zero-knowledge encryption grants, keep in mind that not even the file transfer service provider has access to your decryption key because it never gets to them. It is, therefore, impossible to obtain the key to your shared (uploaded) file from the servers of the file transfer service provider. Even if the servers get compromised by hackers, your data will remain safe.
So, when choosing a channel to share files securely with your friends, team, employees, or co-workers, you must go for a service that provides zero-knowledge encryption. FileWhopper is a good example of such a service. Not only does it keep your shared files safe, but it also doesn’t impose any limits on the size of the file or folder you wish to share.
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed how to transfer files securely online. We suggested a service that not only secures your documents as you share them but also makes it possible for you to send large files and folders online. Email and most cloud storage/sharing solutions just don’t cut it anymore as they are often equipped with less-than-adequate security features that may not be reliable enough to handle confidential documents.
