Chargebacks911 Founder Monica Eaton appeared in a recent feature for Business Insider regarding the security or lack thereof of the much-lauded online storage system Google Drive. Monica and several other industry leaders were asked to weigh in.
Business Insider is a fast-growing business site with deep financial, media, tech, and other industry verticals. Launched in 2007 by former top-ranked Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget and DoubleClick executives Dwight Merriman and Kevin Ryan, the site is now the largest business news site on the web. Business Insider was acquired by German media company Axel Springer SE in September 2015.
Regardless of previous hacks, the risk of using Google Drive is low. Google employs the strong 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption on all its Google Drive servers (with the exception of a small number of storage devices that date prior to 2015). Likewise, when the data is in transit between users and Google Drive servers, Google uses the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol to protect the data and prevent interception.
However, this is not to imply that just because the risk is low, it’s anywhere near “zero.” Some security experts don't love that Google keeps encryption keys for all the files on Google Drive. When asked for her opinion, Monica warned that inter-agency and international laws and regulations could be a factor.
“If your files are subpoenaed, depending on what Google decides, it might not take a security breach to forfeit your privacy.” Monica says. While this might not be an issue for everyone, everywhere… it can still complicate things for many users.
