Is Google Drive safe to share sensitive files and how does it protect your data?

 

Cloud storage services have become the most popular for storing and sharing files over the past years, as they provide a number of features that make everyone accept their use, such as ease and speed in transferring files in addition to providing reasonable storage spaces for free and other features, but is it safe? In fact, the Google Drive cloud storage service has more than 1 billion users and more than 2 trillion files stored in the cloud, so can Google manage and keep this huge number of files securely?

 

Unfortunately, Google has suffered a lot due to security problems during the past years, for example, in 2014, the data of Google accounts for more than 5 million users was hacked, however, things have evolved a lot with the progress of the years as Google Drive has already become more secure and there are many One of the useful tips that can help you secure your files greatly, and this is what we discuss with you in detail in this topic.

 

What are the uses of Google Drive?

 

Before we start talking about the security of Google Drive, we first quickly learn about the different uses of Google Drive, and of course, the primary use of Google Drive is to upload files and store them on the cloud so that you can access them anytime and anywhere, this is what Google Drive and all storage services do Other clouds, and the name Drive indicates that the service connects files between the user and the cloud.

 

This can be useful in many cases, if you have important data on your device and want to provide more protection and security for it, you can upload it to the Google Drive service so that it is a backup copy that you can refer to when needed, such as when the ransom virus infected your device, for example, and you can count OnDrive to transfer and sync files between different devices, as well as share them with friends, work for the team, and more.

 

The advantage of Google Drive is that it gives you 15 GB of free space, and it is considered highly secure and may be impossible to hack, as the files are secured through AES256 or AES128 encryption, which is the same security protocol used in other Google services. Now we can move on to the next part of the topic, which is how does Google Drive secure your data?

 

Is Google Drive secure?

 

The short answer is yes, Google Drive is very secure and it might be impossible for your data stored on Google Drive to be compromised. For example, Google relies on the 256-bit Advanced and Strong Encryption Standard (AES) for almost all of its servers, except for a very small percentage of storage devices that use AES128, which are older devices that existed before 2015.

 

But if the data is secure on Google Drive servers, what about the process of transferring data between different devices and servers? Indeed, hackers can intercept data, but Google relies on the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol to protect data and prevent interception during the transmission and transmission process between users' devices and Google's servers, and this would make it impossible to hack data.

 

How can Google Drive be insecure?

 

On the other hand, there are a lot of criticisms leveled at Google Drive by security experts and cybersecurity companies, and one of the most important of these criticisms is that Google keeps the keys for data encryption it has, and these keys are considered the only way to decrypt data, but on the contrary, there are many Other apps that don't keep encryption keys like the popular messaging app Signal, which means that even the company itself can't access your data and that's great.

 

However, the possibility of your data on Google Drive being hacked is almost impossible, but what may represent a greater risk to your data in Google Drive are “user errors” i.e. practices that you may make that make your Google account vulnerable to hacking or lead to the loss of your data. These practices include using weak passwords, forgetting passwords, or accidentally sharing private files with other users, among other things. Here we can offer you the following tips that will surely help you to enhance the security of your data on Google Drive.

 

Steps to secure your files on Google Drive

 

User errors are often the primary risk to the data on Google Drive, as well as to the devices they're signed in with. Remember that private data on Google Drive is synced on different devices that are signed in with your Google account so you should pay close attention to this matter, be sure not to log into your Google account on any device that you do not trust.

 

In general, you can secure your Google account by using a strong password, in addition to using the security options that Google provides you with, and this will ensure that you secure all services associated with your account, whether Google Drive or other services and to access the security settings of your Google account Go to the Google account management page first and then click on the “Security” option in the menu on the right.

 

On this page, you will find many tips and tricks that Google offers you in order to stay safe and you will see a history of security activities that shows you logins to your account, password changes, etc. You can also scroll down to the option “2-step verification” Or two-factor authentication, which is one of the best options to help you secure your Google account.

 

After clicking on this option, you will be asked to enter your password again in order to confirm your identity here you will find many options that you can use to confirm your identity when logging in to your account on a new device, and among these options is to use a phone number or security codes Or Google Authenticator so no one will be able to log into your account even if they know your password.