How to keep your documents safe on the cloud

1. Pick a good cloud storage provider

The first step to keeping your documents safe on the cloud is using a good cloud storage provider like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or DropBox. When choosing a cloud storage provider, consider it’s security features, and how reputable it is.

2. Use unique passwords, and don’t share them

You should always be using a unique password for each place you log into, and don’t share your password around. If you use the same password for multiple websites, and one website gets hacked, the hacker suddenly has access to all the other websites you used that password for. While it can be tough to remember a bunch of passwords, using a password manager like Dashlane of Google Passwords (the one built right into Chrome), makes it much easier to create and manage secure passwords.

While it can be tempting to share an account with your co-workers for the sake of simplicity, you should avoid doing this as well since that greatly increases the risk of your password falling into the wrong hands, and makes it significantly harder to control access to your account. 

3. Use two factor authentication (2FA)

Two factor authentication greatly increases the security of your data. How it typically works is you have a 6 digit code on your phone that changes every minute or so, when you go to log in, you log in with your password, and provide the 6 digit code that currently shows on your phone. The codes that show on your phone will only show on your physical phone, they can’t be accessed or found anywhere else. This extra layer of security means that for someone to log in, they wouldn’t only need your password, but also your physical phone. Make sure your cloud storage provider offers 2FA, and get your entire team to use it for better account security.

4. Control access

With cloud storage providers like Google Drive, you can control who has access to what documents; you can also separately allow people to have read-only access, so they can view the document but not edit it. When setting up your Google Drive, consider who should have access to what files, and make sure to set the appropriate access permissions for your team.

Most cloud providers also give you the option to make documents accessible by anyone via a public link, make sure to keep that disabled for any documents that should be internal only.

5. Keep your devices up to date

Make sure to always stay up to date with the latest version of your browser, software, operating system, and apps. The reason why it’s important to install these updates is that often updates fix new vulnerabilities, which means staying on the old version may not be safe from hackers. Most technology will update automatically, make sure not to disable automatic updates.