Technology has made life better for all. The advent of the internet opened up limitless possibilities. For instance, today you can easily share data with people in various geographic locations without leaving the comfort of your home.
However, the rising wave of cybercrime has raised the concern for data protection on the internet. Hackers often intercept, access, and exploit sensitive information you put on the internet. But, fortunately, there are several ways to secure online file transfers.
Would you like to send large files securely over the internet? In this article, we’ll show you how.
What Is Data Protection?
Data protection, also called information privacy or data security, refers to a set of processes and strategies that ensure the availability, privacy, and integrity of your data.
An effective data protection strategy is crucial for any organization that handles, stores, or collects sensitive data. It can help prevent data loss, corruption, or theft. And should a breach occur, it can help minimize damages.
How to Secure Your Data Transfer
- Data Encryption
Data encryption is a security measure that encodes data, granting access to it only to the user with the appropriate decryption key. Encrypted data, also called ciphertext, looks scrambled or unreadable to a third party without appropriate access.
Data encryption is an essential defense line in a cybersecurity architecture because it renders intercepted data useless or as difficult as possible to use by a third party.
What’s more, using zero-knowledge encryption to protect data is even better. It’s a cutting-edge method in data protection and file transfer security. This is because with zero-knowledge encryption, only the user has access to the password key.
The password key is not stored on the servers or any data storage unit, denying even the service providers access to the data. So, if the servers get compromised, your password key is secure with you. You can entrust your files to any reliable data sharing service provider that uses zero-knowledge encryption, such as FileWhopper.
FileWhopper utilizes the zero-knowledge encryption method in its design to ensure top-tier protection of every data transfer. You can use it to send large files and folders securely to any geographical location.
Here’s how it works:
- Whenever a user initiates an upload to share data, they will receive a unique ID for the transfer instead of a file name. And with zero-knowledge encryption, even the FileWhopper team does not have any idea of the name of your file or folder.
- There is a tiny dedicated app to securely upload and transfer data. The sender gets a download link to their file or folder, and the transfer is assigned a strong password, which is either generated automatically or designed by the user. The password is locally stored with the user and never on any of FileWhopper’s servers.
- The app encrypts the user’s folder or file, breaking it into tiny data fragments, and then uploads the ciphertext to FileWhopper’s server.
- Once the transfer is over, the FileWhopper app auto-deletes, sparing you the need to remove it manually.
- The user can share the encryption key and download link with their recipient using appropriate means at the beginning of the transfer process. The recipient can use the download link and start downloading the data while the upload is still in progress, meaning FileWhopper supports simultaneous uploads and downloads.
You can rest assured that only you and your desired recipient can access your data. Besides, FileWhopper has no file size limits, and your transfer can auto-resume if your internet connection fails during the data upload. Zero-knowledge encryption is no doubt one of the best ways to protect data from malicious users.
- File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
FTP is a standard communication protocol used for transferring data from a server to a client on another computer network. FTP employs a client-server model architecture using separate data connections and control between the server and the client.
FTP often requests user authentication through a clear-text sign-in procedure, usually as a username and password. However, users can also connect anonymously if the server’s configuration allows it.
FTP allows the back and forth transfer of files between computers or via the cloud. It is an essential tool for those who build and maintain websites. As long as you keep your username and password private, you can rest assured that your files are secure.
- Virtual Private Network (VPN)
A VPN is another trusted method you can use to secure your data. Regardless of your work setting, as long as it requires using the internet, VPN remains one of the most secure ways to prevent data breaches on the internet. This is particularly essential for public Wi-Fi network users.
A VPN creates a private, secure, and encrypted communication channel: if your packets (chunks of data) are intercepted, they cannot be deciphered. Let’s see how it works.
Each internet request results in a sequence of communication events between multiple points. What a VPN does is it encrypts those packets at the originating point, hiding the data and your IP address information.
The VPN software on your device then sends those packets to a VPN server at a destination point, decrypting that information and sending it to your destination application, such as your bank app.
A VPN works both at the corporate and consumer levels. The corporate or enterprise VPN connects the local area networks of business branches over the public internet. This works by setting up VPNs between offices, which encrypts your data as it is transferred over the public internet.
Similarly, the consumer VPN is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that provides a secure communication channel between your computing device, such as your phone, laptop, or tablet, and the provider’s data center.
If you’re away from your home or office and want to use another person’s Wi-Fi network, use a VPN. Since you can’t tell whether or not it is compromised, it’s best to play safe.
Conclusion
There are several other ways to secure your files online, but with the methods mentioned above, you can rest assured of the security of your data.
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Working as a cyber security solutions architect, Alisa focuses on application and network security. Before joining us she held a cyber security researcher positions within a variety of cyber security start-ups. She also experience in different industry domains like finance, healthcare and consumer products.
