Several of our clients have considered using free cloud based tools. The most popular of these tools being Dropbox and Gmail. This article raises some great points and puts Data Encryption in the Cloud in concise perspective.
This article points out why using hosted email (Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, etc.) may be a bad idea for community banks. Yes, the data is encrypted during transmission.
However, access control to your data cannot be guaranteed! There is s reason Gmail is free. It analyzes your email and advertises to you based on what is in your email. Hence, Google staff have access to your email, and at this time is not encrypted at rest. Under this scenario, the bank would need Privacy agreements with Google to use Gmail.
Here is a quick and dirty risk assessment for free web hosted email:
PROS
- FREE!!
- Their web servers are probably more secured (logically and physically) than a community bank’s location
- Encrypted internally
- Uptime
- Low Overhead
- Almost unlimited storage
- FREE!!
CONS
- Hosted email company staff have access to your email – RED FLAG
- Cannot control which device users access email
- User administration
- No External Encryption
- No retention policies
Hope this opens some eyes when using free web based email discussions appear in your environment.