Is it Safe to Send and Store Data Online?
With the current state of digital privacy around the world it’s no wonder people are worried about storing and transferring information on the web. This fear comes up over and over again from consumers looking at cloud storage options. Luckily, despite what many tv shows and movies have led us to believe, there are actually safe ways to transfer and store data online.
When it comes to keeping your data out of the hands of other people the most important thing is encryption. Encryption puts a code on your data that locks it away and only the correct user (you) have the key to unlock it. This means that even if someone does manage to snatch the data out of the Internet it will just look like a garbled mess.
All online backup services encrypt your data as a default in order to avoid security issues. There are even extra secure options offered by many services that further lock away the data by giving you a special password.
The password is literally not known by anyone but yourself, making it impossible for governments, thieves, and hackers to ever decrypt your information. One the downside if you lose the password there is no way to retrieve it so your information is lost forever.
Conclusion
Having said all that, there will always be a degree of risk involved in computer use. It isn’t any safer to store data locally than it is to store data online these days. Even though there is a risk, it is worth keeping in mind that even if your encrypted information is stolen there is really no way to discover what it says.
Even the most powerful computers in the world can’t decrypt the standard 448-bit option in a single lifetime. Make sure to secure your computer with the best online backup service possible to avoid disaster.