To store or not to store, that is the cloud question

Eighty feet below street level, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York holds one the world’s most secure vaults. With a comprehensive multichannel security system, tons of steel, concrete and a 24-hour monitoring service, the gold housed within is virtually theft-proof.

With such stringent security measures, it would be foolish to store items less precious than gold inside. However, when it comes to storing personal items on the cloud, 'precious' is a highly subjective notion. Although the items stored within a safe and on the cloud are often similar, there is no universal code for what users should be storing and digitally encrypting. What’s important to one user may not be so important to the next, and, with such unpredictable tendencies, cloud storage providers should allow users to decide what needs the most protection.

To Store

Home safes are often filled with a person’s most important and confidential documents. Users should treat cloud storage the same way, and, when choosing which files to store and encrypt, they should mimic the thought process of filling any safe. Not only are the following types of documents great options for cloud storage, but they also highlight the best features of any cloud storage platform:

• Loans: When taking out a loan, cosignatories complicate positive outcomes. It’s best when one person is solely responsible for payments and safekeeping, and the same is true when storing important documents on the cloud. Minimize the number of people with access to your storage. Sharing the combination to your safe multiplies risk, and the more people that know your cloud storage password, the more opportunities there are for data loss and hacking.The most secure cloud storage providers are those that let users create their own passwords, and also do not store user passwords and information across digital servers.

• Wills: Just as individuals decide what gets inherited and by whom, cloud storage users should have complete control over which of their files gets stored and encrypted. When choosing a cloud storage provider, look for a platform that offers client-side encryption, which, unlike the more popular end-to-end alternative, allows users to encrypt files as they see fit. Not all items belong in a safe, and personalized encryption practices ensure that not all files end up encrypted on the cloud.

• Medical Records: Health is often a highly private concern, with individual privacy even reinforced by national HIPAA regulations. People do not want their medical records available as public information, and the same high-security standards should apply to files encrypted on the cloud. Users should pick providers that guarantee zero-knowledge privacy standards, meaning that the provider never learns the name, type, or content of any encrypted file. A safe company never knows the content stored inside of its products, and neither should cloud storage providers.
  

Not to Store

When deciding what not to store, think of the things that you might stash in the kitchen counter, or tuck into a bedroom closest: receipts, recipes, photos and manuals. Although valuable, these items are too regularly utilized and shared to be stored in a safe.

For the sensitive documents that you’d keep in a safe, an added encryption step is warranted. But for vacation photos or family recipes that are frequently shared with family and friends, this step can be unnecessarily cumbersome.

With the massive amount of existing data, and the equally massive potential for more data to come, users should treat their cloud storage providers like a personal safe. Every cloud storage user has unique needs, and they need the ability to self-determine which of their files are stored and encrypted. Whether it’s in a metal safe or a digital cloud, storage should always leave users feeling well-protected.

Too often though, cloud storage providers are apt to view user data like it’s all the same-pictures, personal files and important documents clumped together as a single, digital 'you'. Although certain types of documents are more likely to be encrypted than others, a blanket solution to cloud storage encryption is insufficient.

In this Shakespearean dilemma, it’s cloud storage users, not cloud storage providers, who should be answering the question of to store, or not to store.

Image Credit: Bedrin / Shutterstock

Tunio Zafer is the CEO of cloud storage platform pCloud. As a leader and manager in the cloud storage space, Tunio promotes innovation in areas such as security measures and cost to end users. Tunio encourages forward-thinking throughout his team, working toward making a significant impact on the rapidly growing IT market, for individuals and business alike.