We all share files with those we work with, those we are friends with and those we are doing business with. Nowadays with mobile devices, email and the cloud, it is extremely easy to share files, easy enough that we may accidentally send and share them to the wrong person.
Recently, the National Guard was hit with a data breach, where files containing personal information were unintentionally transferred to a “non-DoD-accredited data center by a contract employee.” Although in this case it was not believed to be malicious, there is still the fate of the possibility that this information will get into the wrong hands.
If you send confidential and sensitive information outside of your company and this sort of situation above happened, that could be a HUGE problem. Most email programs have a type-ahead feature that helps you fill in email addresses as you type. This is great since most of us frequently send email to the same people. The downside is that we are too reliant on the technology and may not carefully look before hitting the Send button.
The best way to make sure that a confidential document doesn’t get into the wrong hands is to encrypt it with data-centric security that contains a persistent file policy. If the unintended recipient opens the document, he or she can’t read anything. The contents of the document looks like random characters.
By encrypting your files with programs like Fasoo’s Data Security Framework, it provides an added layer of security, whether you happen to email or share your files to the wrong person or not.
We all make mistakes; why not protect yourself ahead of time before your mistakes can cause harm?
Photo credit by: Sharon Sinclair