Now that you’ve enjoyed a little flashback to the ’60’s, let’s talk about what a CLOUD looks like in 2018.
“The Cloud” is a global network of servers, each with its own function. Instead of accessing files and data from a local or personal computer, you are accessing them online from any Internet-capable device-the information will be available anywhere you go and anytime you need it. But how secure is it? How can we keep others from accessing our personal information?
Like looking at clouds in the song “Both Sides Now”, there are a couple of perspectives when looking at cloud solutions.
There are many advantages to using the cloud–access to information from any device, ability to talk to people around the world on our devices, fresh access to information, less need to upgrade hardware, cost-effective, easier for collaborative projects, disaster recovery, etc.
But, there are some disadvantages as well, including connectivity/accessibility, usability, cost of storage and most importantly, security.
Personally, I mostly use cloud storage solutions for my personal photos and scanned documents. In the past, I figured, I’m not a celebrity, I don’t have any naked pictures, who would want to hack into my photos?
But this morning I read an article about the 2014 Labor Day photo hack of naked photos and videos of celebrities. What I hadn’t seen before was that the hacker not only hacked and leaked photos from celebrity accounts but also the accounts of friends and family members! I wondered how he gained access to these accounts, but the article exposed that…he tricked his victims into providing their usernames and passwords in emails that appeared to come from Apple security.
Now I look at clouds from a different perspective. It’s a wonderful way to back up our information but unless you investigate them closely, you may miss the storms that are brewing behind them if you don’t use them with caution.
Please don’t click or respond or share your personal or password information with anyone! If you receive an email asking you to click or sign in, instead of clicking or copying the link in the email, go to the site by typing the name of the company into your browser or make a phone call to the company. Then change your password just in case!
|
