Gone are the days when you store your personal digital files on a hard drive or flash drive and keep it in a safe place to prevent unauthorized access. The easy availability of cloud storage technology has changed how we store and manage our digital files.
While storing data in a public cloud offers many advantages, some of us may feel we are losing control over our online data. We keep hearing all those horrifying stories of public cloud data breaches, and it can make us question our choice of storing sensitive personal files in the cloud. The truth is, in effect, the cloud is more secure than traditional storage if you do it right.
Here we discuss how you can use encryption to your advantage to keep your data safe in a public cloud.
What is encryption?
Encryption is a method of converting plain data into a secret code. The digital data or file contains a series of characters that can be interpreted by various programs. Encryption uses an algorithm to scramble those characters and turn plain text into ciphertext. The resulting text can only be read by someone who possesses the correct decryption key or password. The key allows the original data to be restored. Encryption ensures that only authorized parties can access or read the data.
Ways to encrypt your files in the cloud
Encryption is the single-most effective way to keep your files safe in the cloud. Here are the three ways to encrypt your digital files in the cloud.
Use a zero-knowledge cloud storage service:
You can choose cloud storage that offers zero-knowledge encryption. It means the service provider cannot access the encryption keys that are used to encrypt the data and therefore, cannot read or view the data stored on their servers.
With zero-knowledge encryption, the data is encrypted on the user’s device before being uploaded to the cloud and can only be decrypted by the user, who possesses the encryption key or password. Depending on the service provider, encryption can be automatic. Zero-knowledge encryption ensures your data remains secure and unreadable even if the provider’s server is compromised.
Remember, all cloud storage services do not offer zero-knowledge encryption. So, enquire about the security policy of the cloud storage provider before choosing one.
Use a cloud encryption tool:
Cloud encryption tools are used to provide an additional layer of security to protect sensitive or confidential data stored in the cloud. These services are designed to encrypt files, folders, or entire drives in the cloud. These applications typically use strong encryption algorithms to secure data, such as AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) and RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman). These tools generate the encryption keys on your device, and only you have access to the key.
Use native encryption:
It is the easiest method to encrypt a file or folder before uploading it to the cloud. Both Microsoft and Adobe offer this feature. All you need to do is protect the file with a complex password before uploading. You can also use 7Zip or WinRAR to encrypt a folder before uploading it to your cloud storage. However, remember you may face compatibility issues with a natively encrypted file. You may not be able to open the file with different versions of the software it is created with.
We recommend you use multiple encryptions for the files that contain sensitive information and delete them when you no longer need them.
Blomp offers a secure cloud storage service with features like two-factor authentication and file encryption. With Blomp, you get up to 200 GB of free storage space. Visit Blomp to learn more about the various plans and choose the best one for you.