Online Storage

The data you store online is protected by state of the art firewalls, hacker detection systems and hacker avoidance systems. Data sent to online storage services is backed up daily, and local access to the data center is secured within a complex with armed security guards, closed circuit video surveillance and electronic access controls such as swipe cards and keypads. The building is built in such a way as to be earthquake, flood and fire resistant. Online storage services use redundant servers and auxiliary systems in case of a malfunction or defect in one machine. Power systems are designed to be fault-proof. Generators and batteries guarantee a non-stop supply of power to the free online storage servers.

The internet connection is also designed with redundancies built in. It’s not uncommon for online storage services to connect to the Internet via not only multiple connections but also multiple types of connections. A single data center could have both satellite and T3 hook ups. This not only prevents a malfunction in one system from pulling the service offline, it also protects against distributed denial of service attacks by increasing the bandwidth available to the online storage data center. By maintaining a bandwidth margin between the amount of data transferred under normal operation with the amount of data which can be transferred if required, a denial of service attack becomes much more difficult to pull off. The larger this safety margin, the more "zombie" computers a hacker needs to use to successfully pull a free online file storage service offline.

But with all this in-built security there remains one glaring vulnerability which if left unchecked would leave your online storage account completely accessible to any determined attacker: Your password. If you have chosen an easy to guess or crack free online storage password, all of the security in the world could not possibly keep your data secure. So how do passwords get stolen in the first place and what can you do to prevent your online storage password from leaving your free online file storage account vulnerable?

Hackers can steal your password in a number of ways. The most obvious way a hacker can steal a password is when you give it to them. Sharing your password with anyone, even a trusted friend or family member could result in a sequence of events resulting in a hacker acquiring it. Even writing your password down can result in a compromised account, especially at a workstation which is not locally secured. The worse thing you could do is write your password down on a post-it note at work and leave the note on your desk. Co-workers can’t always be trusted and sometimes the most effective hackers are those you share a cubical with. An often overlooked method of leaving your password where people can find it is to use the auto-complete and password management features of a web browser, web site or operating system. Your computer could be storing your passwords for your convenience but that convenience comes at a price, and it completely defies the whole point of using passwords.

Hackers also use brute force and dictionary attacks. A dictionary attack is one in which a hacker attempts to sign into your account repeatedly using words from a dictionary file stored on their computer as the password. A 500,000 word dictionary can be processed in less than a day. Compound words and even personal information such as your name, birth date, address, phone number and names of family members can be added to the attack. Never use a dictionary word or personal information in your password. Names of children, birthdays and so forth can all be found out pretty easy using a simple public records search. Never underestimate the amount of personal information someone can gain access to even without a password.

Brute force attacks are similar to dictionary attacks in that multiple free online file storage passwords are checked against an account in order to find one which works. Except that in brute force attacks, the passwords checked come not from a dictionary, but from randomly produced sets of numbers, letters and symbols. By scanning every possible combination of characters (known as the "alphabet"), a hacker can guess any possible password. It just becomes a matter of time. There a still things you can and must do to secure your account. For starters, always use characters from each character type. That-is, use upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numbers and symbols ("/?*%$#@", etc…) if possible. This increases the number of possible combinations that a hacker has to check before arriving at yours. Also the longer your free online file storage password is, the harder it is to guess for the same reason. Never use a password of less then eight characters.

Remember, even with a long password consisting of all character types, it’s still just a matter of time before your account can be compromised by a brute force attack. To counter this, change your password often. Brute force attacks can take less than a week with a small army of computers cracking a good password so make sure your password changes within this interval. It’s not possible to make your password "uncrackable", but there are many ways to make it very difficult to crack.