For Privacy and Security, Keep the Personal Data Out of the Cloud

To bolster the protection of its citizen’s private information, the new EU General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect next year. Yet ComputerWeekly reports that only 1 in 100 cloud providers meet the requirements in the new directive.

University of California researchers say that Gmail can be hacked with a 92 percent success rate — regardless of phone model or software platform.

No doubt, you’ve heard about the photos of Jennifer Lawrence, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and other celebrities being hacked from their personal online accounts on iCloud.

Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this. Feeling for everyone who got hacked.

— Mary E. Winstead (@M_E_Winstead) August 31, 2014

Not only was Winstead’s photos in the iCloud, but also the photos were deleted, or so the actress thought. Yet someone, somewhere out there managed to grab them and share them.

Beware that once something is in the cloud, it may be hard or impossible to delete it for good. And there’s no way to check if it’s gone. The best way to protect yourself when posting anything in the cloud is to ask: If I put this in the cloud and someone discovers it, is it OK or not?

Clearly, we’re seeing more headlines on the invasion of privacy and security. While most of us may not be celebrities — much less have inappropriate photos of ourselves posted somewhere — we wouldn’t want our private information to spill out on the Internet. Despite this, many people sync their address books, photos, docs, spreadsheets and personal notes with Google’s cloud services.

This isn’t to say you should avoid the cloud altogether. Instead, be selective about what you upload and sync in the cloud. Take photos with your phone that you absolutely don’t want leaking anywhere? Maybe it’s time to disconnect it from the cloud service or change the phone’s privacy and sync settings.

Another avenue to explore is turning on two-step authentication. Google, iCloud, Facebook, Dropbox and other services offer this. You can also take steps to keep Google from tracking you on the web.

Still you probably want to enter new appointments, write emails to people whose email address you haven’t memorized and update contact information on your phone. And you want the updates to show up on your computers and devices without having to re-enter it.

One way to do this is to use sync software that doesn’t sync through the cloud like AkrutoSync, which syncs Outlook calendar, contacts, tasks and notes with Android devices and Windows Phones. You don’t even need a cable to sync and secure your data. AkrutoSync gives you the option to sync over Wi-Fi or through an encrypted Internet connection. Try the full version of AkrutoSync free for seven days.

Keep that information private and secure by taking the cloud out of the equation.