Is Google Drive Safe for User Data?
Read time 5 minutes
One of the questions that most users often ask themselves while using Google Drive is whether it’s safe to store their data?
Google Drive is one of the most prominent cloud storage services that allow users to store up to 15 GB of free data using their accounts. With a user base of more than a billion, Google Drive is becoming the most popular storage service provider in the world. Users can store, synchronize, and share files via Google Drive easily, making it an ideal option for users who can’t access other cloud storage service providers.
But is it really safe to store data in Google Drive? In the past, many users became a victim of cyberattacks, resulting in usernames and passwords being stolen and leaked online. So, data security in Google Drive is a major concern for users.
This article will help you understand whether Google Drive is safe for you or not and what you can do to secure your data in Google Drive.
Being the best search engine and a reputed enterprise, Google understands users’ security concerns with cloud storage services. Also, with a global infrastructure and massive investment in data security, Google has a highly professional data security team.
Google Drive is the most reliable and protected cloud platform for most individuals. It uses 128-bit and 256-bit AES keys for encryption, protecting the confidentiality of the data stored in Google Drive.
Another added security feature of Google Drive is the Transport Layer Security. Google uses the TLS standard to protect data in transition and prevent a man-in-the-middle attack. It secures the communication channel with the protocol, but files can be vulnerable if shared externally. The data is the highest risk when you create publicly accessible links with full rights allowing anyone to read, modify, copy, print, and download the file with the given link. In such situations, TLS encryption won’t be of any use to protect your files.
As mentioned above, Google has encryption keys for all the data files stored in your drive. And that’s one of the reasons most users don’t believe in Google Drive’s security. With encryption keys, Google can decrypt any file and bypass its security. This is also one of the reasons that can lead to data vulnerability.
Another essential factor is absence of clear laws. For instance, if Google decides to access all its users’ files, there aren’t any laws or policies that prevent it from doing so, in many parts of the world. That’s why most organizations don’t prefer to use Google Drive to store their data.
However, it’s not only Google’s responsibility to secure your data; you should also follow the best security practices and measures to protect your data against vulnerabilities. Below are some of the best practices you can follow you secure your data in Google Drive.
There are specific tips every user can follow to protect their data from security breaches in Google Drive.
Google provides some recommendations to secure your data against any data breaches. You can check Google’s Security Checkup to perform a security check-up on your account. This way, you’ll be able to implement advanced security practices in your account.
Multi-factor authentication is one of the easiest ways to protect your account and data. It prevents hackers from accessing your account, even if they get access to your password. Google provides its own two-step verification that generates a one-time password every time you log in to your account. This helps to avoid common phishing attacks on your account.
Additional account recovery options like recovery phone numbers and email addresses are powerful security options used to block someone from accessing your account without your permission. It even alerts you for any suspicious activity performed on your account. It also helps you recover your account after security compromises. If there are any data breaches, then you can backup Google Drive to External hard drive.
You can remove your account access to any non-essential apps to protect sensitive information. Most users often give access to their account without considering how it can impact their security. You can review apps with access to your account and turn it off for the apps that use less secure sign-in technology.
Using a solid and unique account password can help you avoid multiple vulnerabilities. Also, make sure not to use the same password for various sites or accounts. For example, if your password is stolen for any site, it can be used to access other accounts linked to your email. You can take help from password managers to generate and manage robust and unique passwords.
If you’re a Workspace administrator, you can use various tools designed by Google for an additional layer of security. There are various options available to choose from, such as:
These admin tools help you add additional security parameters to your account and allow you to retain, hold, search, and export users’ data.
The best approach to protect your data and access it anytime is to backup it regularly. No matter what security parameters you use, it’ll always be insecure if you don’t have a backup. You can always back up your Google Drive data with professional tools available online. We are showing you the best Google Drive Backup tool among top 4 Google Drive Backup tool in 2021.
In our opinion, Kernel Google Drive Backup is the ultimate tool that can be used to back up all the Google Drive files and folders on your local system. It offers an ultimate Google Drive backup facility without any restrictions. The tool is integrated with intelligent functionalities and advanced algorithms, such as secure backup for G Suite data, backup Google Drive data from multiple user accounts, unlimited backup of the data, and broad compatibility across various platforms.
The tool is ideal for multiple account backups at a time, which is not feasible manually. Besides, it even offers a complete report of the data backup in CSV format.
Google Drive is an excellent platform to store your files, photos, and other documents. It offers up to 15 GB of free storage to store your files. But, due to various misconceptions around Google Drive security, some users don’t prefer using it. The above article sheds light on whether Google Drive is safe while discussing multiple tips to enhance security.
I did not know that Google Drive follows some encryption, but I would always vote for its security levels. All of my data is saved here, but I have to take backup only when it reaches to its size limit.