3 Ways to Protect Your Data in the Cloud

For consumers, the cloud is a big blessing: It lets them store huge amounts of information—music, messages, photos and so on—at little or no cost. Thanks to a wide array of services, it’s possible to squirrel away as much digital data as you like without buying extra equipment like hard drives or memory sticks.

The cloud, in this sense, is like a big free storage locker — but one that poses a special security danger. Unlike a physical file cabinet, data stored in the cloud can be at risk of being stolen by cyber-criminals around the world. And if the crooks do strike, they are likely to get hold of an enormous amount of information.

The most common way crooks get into cloud services is by getting a consumer’s password and letting themselves into the account. They can do this by hacking a cloud company’s database, tricking a consumer into revealing it (often using an email that purports to be from the company) or simply guessing it—many consumers today still use easy-to-guess passwords like “123456” or “password.” Meanwhile, consumers may re-use passwords, which can lead to a series of additional digital break-ins.

“Given our ever-growing online presence, consumers may be tempted to use the same password across multiple websites,” says Megan Stifle, cybersecurity policy director at consumer advocate group Public Knowledge. “This leaves consumers very vulnerable. If the password is compromised at one site, e.g., at their email account, the [hacker] will try the same password and simple variations of it at the most valuable sites in the user’s inbox.”

Fortunately, cloud companies are paying a lot of attention to the problem of cloud security. Many are offering consumers easy-to-use options to lock down their data. Right now, there are three good options, and all of them involve asking for an extra piece of information when someone tries to log in from an unfamiliar computer.

The first extra-security option comes in the form of a simple text message, and companies like Google and Microsoft have been offering it for a while. It involves sending a code to a consumer’s cellphone, and asking them to enter it along with their password.