Good Morning! You’ve Been Breached!
In my many travels visiting customers and IT professionals around the world, I ask a simple question, “What do you do when you have to send a file to someone that’s just too big?” They ask me how big is big? I say too big for your email or even worse, something that is too big for the receiver’s email. These attachments are typically large powerpoint files, spreadsheets, uncompressed images, media files or even databases. With a sheepish grin people usually tell me they use one of the free email services, like GMail, MS Live or Yahoo. However, recently the answer has shifted. I’m now being inundated with business users and IT professionals professing their love for Cloud services such as DropBox.
In all fairness if you look at my iPad (peeling it from my cold dead hands) you will see my Dropbox app and PAID Dropbox account. So it’s unnerving for me to think about the four hours on Sunday when Dropbox left user accounts unlocked and you could access anyone of the 25 million users’ accounts and data… Including mine. Yep, just type in an email address and use any password you want and it’s all yours.
According to Dropbox there wasn’t any nefarious activity but if YOUR COMPANY’S information was on there – legitimately or illegitimately – you just had a data breach. So I was a breach victim… And if I had any Ipswitch IP on the servers, the breach is extended accordingly. To Dropbox’s credit, their business is all about collaboration and file syncing, not governed file transfer or managed data at rest. In the end, some of these types of Cloud services will eventually get enough of it right to secure their future. Some will last, many won’t.
Regardless, how are you going to handle your data breach this morning? I’m headed over to my bosses office to explain my brazen disregard for corporate data. He’ll probably buy me a new iPad2 that’s locked down (wishful thinking) and order IT to set up a more secure way for me to be mobile with my documents (more wishful thinking).
About fkenney:
Frank Kenney is Vice President, Global Strategy and Product Management at Ipswitch, responsible for defining the company's vision and strategy and integrating his global perspective into the products, services and messaging. Frank brings an unmatched depth of experience and knowledge in the managed file transfer space to the team. Most recently, Frank was a Research Director at Gartner, Inc., responsible for analyzing topics including managed file transfer, application integration, SOA, and business process management. He initiated and drove the Magic Quadrants on managed file transfer and SOA governance technologies. Before joining Gartner, Frank was Director of Creative Services and Content Distribution at the Executive Business Group. Frank holds a degree in Music Technology from the Center for the Media Arts and has studied English and Computer Science at University of Tampa. When not working, Frank can be found living the life of a frustrated musician and producer in his home studio in Tampa.
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