These days, all roads result in storing your information within the cloud. Your Mac eases the trail to iCloud storage. Microsoft Office applications provide OneDrive because the default for storage. You can get at your cloud-stored information from wherever it’s possible you’ll be, which is kind of handy. But should you do not shield these information with highly effective encryption, you possibly can have massive hassle. If these unprotected information are business-related, not private, the implications could possibly be catastrophic. CertainSafe Digital Safety Deposit Box shops your knowledge within the cloud, however it’s completely centered on securing that knowledge, whether or not its your private information, enterprise data, or enterprise-level commerce secrets and techniques. It’s a prime choose for safe cloud storage and syncing, in addition to for encryption apps.
You can take the service for a spin with a 30-day free trial that features 5GB of storage with no bank card required. If you resolve it is value it, you’ll be able to proceed for $12 per consumer per 30 days. That will get you 100GB of shared encrypted on-line storage per consumer, and the power to share knowledge with as many as 100 company. For an enormous, business-level set up, you may wish to ask for a customized quote. On the enterprise stage, there’s even an API that lets in-house coders incorporate CertainSafe’s expertise immediately into their proprietary apps.
Fireproof Vault vs. Storage Shed
Other file sharing companies provide far more storage per greenback spent. Dropbox provides you a terabyte of storage for $99 per 12 months, for instance. IDrive expenses simply $69.50 per 12 months for twice that quantity of storage. And should you spend $6.99 per 30 days for a terabyte of storage with Microsoft OneDrive, you get Microsoft Office 365 Home as a bonus.
While these companies do goal to guard your knowledge, safety is not their major providing. Yes, it has been a number of years for the reason that massive Dropbox breach, however it did occur, and it was massive. Celebrities who saved their nude pictures on iCloud received a impolite awakening when hackers stole these pictures (and different knowledge). With CertainSafe, safety is precedence primary.
The firm’s literature explains the distinction. It likens the standard on-line storage service to the self-storage companies you discover alongside the freeway. You can dump all of your stuff in there, and it’ll in all probability be protected. CertainSafe, in contrast, is sort of a fireproof vault hidden behind a portray. When you set your most essential knowledge (or your organization’s) within the vault, it is protected, interval. CertainSafe backs up that promise with a rising listing of presidency and third-party certifications for safe knowledge storage within the monetary, healthcare, authorized, and authorities arenas, amongst others.
Some competing companies do have safety sturdy sufficient to allow them to promise compliance with HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act) and different authorities requirements. Dropbox’s enterprise version helps HIPAA, FERPA, and COPPA, although its requirements web page notes that it is “not meant to process or store credit card transactions.” All editions of Box (Personal) are HIPAA / HITECH compliant. OneDrive for Business guarantees compliance with HIPAA, FERPA, and several other different requirements (although the patron version doesn’t).
There’s at all times the choice to encrypt your information with out placing them within the cloud. Folder Lock, InterCrypto CryptoExpert 8, and Cypherix Cryptainer PE, amongst others, create digital disk drives that look and act like some other drive when unlocked. Once you lock the drive, its contents turn into utterly inaccessible. It’s not cloud storage, although—you’ll be able to solely entry these information from the pc the place the digital disk resides.
How CertainSafe Works
The important goal of CertainSafe is to make a generalized knowledge breach not possible. Files are encrypted utilizing a two-part key, one half that is primarily based in your password and one half held on the CertainSafe aspect, with a unique key for each file. It’s what they name a zero-knowledge system, that means that no one at CertainSafe can decrypt your knowledge with out having your password. This additionally signifies that should you neglect your password, they cannot show you how to get well the encrypted knowledge, so do not lose that password.
But that is simply the beginning. The eye-popping characteristic is what they name MicroEncryption. After encrypting your knowledge with the US Government normal AES algorithm, CertainSafe splits the encrypted knowledge into chunks which are saved on completely different servers. Even with out MicroEncryption, a hacker who merely breaks into the encrypted knowledge on a server has a tricky time getting that knowledge decoded. A hacker who weaseled into one in all CertainSafe’s servers would not have an opportunity of decrypting knowledge, since every server solely accommodates bits and items, not entire encrypted information.
This emphasis on safety reveals up once more in service’s login course of. With most safe websites, you merely enter your username and password for full entry. Of course, if the location you logged into was a phishing rip-off, you have simply given away your credentials. CertainSafe’s login course of authenticates you to the location, and authenticates the location to you.
To begin the login course of, you enter your e-mail handle. Once the service validates that handle as an present account, the location shows a picture that you just chosen throughout registration, together with an figuring out phrase that you just equipped. A fraudulent website will not know what picture or phrase to show. Assuming the picture and phrase are those you anticipated, you enter your password, which you need to do inside 60 seconds. On the following display, you’ve 60 seconds to reply one in all your three safety questions. This multistep handshake is decidedly safer than simply counting on username and password.
Getting Started
After you join an account, you log in to finish your registration. CertainSafe would not set up something. There’s no app and no native agent, so you should utilize it on any platform that features a full-scale browser.
Once the location has validated the e-mail handle you entered, you’ve some first-time chores to do. You choose a picture from a predefined assortment, and enter a recognition phrase to additional foil fraudsters. This phrase may be something in any respect; I used a Firesign Theater quote. As famous, CertainSafe shows the picture and phrase you selected at login, to show it isn’t a fraud. Enter your password and click on Continue to lock in these decisions.
After that, you create three safety questions and solutions. I used to be happy to see that CertainSafe would not provide the absurd default decisions that many websites do, like your mom’s maiden identify, or town the place you have been born. Any safety query whose reply may be discovered on-line is a nasty query. Take a second to suppose up three questions that solely you possibly can reply, and make it possible for there isn’t any doubt in your thoughts as to the way you’d reply them. Remember, you may have to reply one in all these at each login. With that, you are prepared to start out utilizing CertainSafe.
CertainSafe’s easy important web page has a menu throughout the highest with 4 gadgets that choose essential program areas: File Manager, Contacts, Manage Users, and Account Settings. Icons present you what number of notifications and chat messages you’ve pending. If you squeeze the browser window down small, the menu gadgets and icons retreat right into a popup menu, making room to show the chosen program space.
File Manager
The central operate of CertainSafe is safe storage in your most essential information, so naturally File Manager is the default menu selection. Initially, the left panel simply reveals All Files and Personal Files. To begin utilizing Personal Files, you need to create at the very least one folder. You can go on to create a folder construction any manner you want, with top-level folders and nested folders, should you discover it helpful for group. It’s essential to know that should you select to securely share any of your delicate knowledge, you achieve this on the folder stage, not file-by-file.
Now choose a cloud folder and click on the Upload button so as to add information. CertainSafe shows a helpful space so that you can drag and drop your picks. When you are prepared, one click on sends the information securely to CertainSafe.
You can now entry your information securely from any browser and look at commonest file varieties in CertainSafe’s built-in viewer. You can transfer or rename information, add feedback, or obtain an area copy. Selecting Audit reveals you all exercise for the file, from its preliminary add to the very newest viewing. And in case you have uploaded a number of variations of a file, selecting Version History from the menu helps you to view or revert to an earlier model.
I did run into a wierd bug with the versioning system. Right-clicking a file and selecting Version History lists variations of that file, however right-clicking one of many variations successfully wrecks your CertainSafe session. The browser window reveals nothing, and restoration requires restarting the browser. I verified this in Chrome and Firefox, on Windows 8 and Windows 10. The appropriate method to view or obtain from the model listing is to pick a model and click on one of many icons that seems above it.
I reported this downside to CertainSafe. They duplicated the issue and stuck it in a single day. With no native agent to fret about, implementing that repair was a easy matter of tweaking the code on the website itself.
You also can transfer or rename any folder, or transfer it to the trash. More importantly, you’ll be able to share the folder with any of your contacts or view and handle present shares for that folder.
Shared With Me
Once one other consumer has shared knowledge with you, you may see a Shared With Me folder beneath Personal Files. You also can select All Files to see all the things without delay. You do not have as many choices with shared information as you do with these you uploaded your self; you’ll be able to view the file, obtain an area copy, or add feedback.
Depending in your permissions, you might also have the ability to add information, together with modified copies of information that you just downloaded. If you do select to obtain, modify, and re-upload a file, you need to use a safe deletion utility to wipe out the unsecured native copy. Note that Folder Lock, AxCrypt, and several other different standalone encryption merchandise have safe deletion constructed proper in.
The proven fact that earlier variations stay out there signifies that in concept you possibly can use CertainSafe as a sort of slow-motion file collaboration software, however it’s nothing just like the real-time interplay provided by collaboration-specific companies. Security is the emphasis right here, not simple, breezy collaboration.
Sharing a Folder
Right click on any folder to convey up a menu of folder actions, together with sharing. These actions additionally seem as icons throughout the highest of the show. You can both share a single folder, or click on the New Share icon to pick a number of folders. Note that subfolders aren’t included until you actively add them.
Next, you select the contacts with whom you wish to share the folder. You can select from present contacts or invite new guest-access contacts. By default, your recipients can entry that shared folder for simply sooner or later. That’s awfully brief; generally you may wish to provide an extended expiry time. You can select from preset intervals as much as a 12 months or set the precise starting and ending date/time for the share.
Finally, you outline permissions for the share. By default, recipients can solely view shared information utilizing the built-in viewer, however you develop that by giving them permission to obtain or add information. Once you click on Share, the recipients get a notification, and the folder reveals up of their Shared With Me folder.
Right-click a folder and select Manage Shares to view all excellent shares. The listing reveals share particulars like the beginning and finish occasions, and contacts you have shared with. You can dig in to regulate every contact’s permissions or the share period, or just revoke the share. Simple!
Manage Users and Contacts
For a person client, the Manage Users web page is not very fascinating. You have only one consumer account—your personal. End of story. In a enterprise setting, you should utilize this web page so as to add customers, beginning with the complete identify, e-mail handle, time zone, and an preliminary password.
The ultimate step is to find out the roles this consumer can take. If you allow the OrgOwner position, the consumer will get full management of the account, simply as you’ve your self. Those with simply Admin entry can handle different customers, however not the account itself. The User position permits the person to create and share information and folders, and to obtain shares. If you flip all three roles off, the person can solely work with information shared by others. I am undecided why you’d do this, although.
After three failed makes an attempt to log in, CertainSafe locks the account. In a multi-user setting, an administrator can unlock the account. If it is simply you, you’ve two decisions: log in utilizing your password and all three safety solutions, or work with customer support to confirm your id and get the account unlocked. An administrator also can reversibly disable entry for any consumer.
If you simply wish to share information with somebody, with out including them to your account, invite that particular person as a visitor consumer. Click Contacts, click on Invite New Contact, and enter the primary identify, final identify, and e-mail handle of the particular person.
CertainSafe sends an e-mail with a hyperlink for the recipient to create a free visitor account. Your recipient goes by means of the identical technique of organising an antiphishing picture and phrase, getting into the password, and creating three safety questions. Now your visitor can entry any information you select to share and also can have interaction in safe chat.
There’s yet another attainable relationship; you’ll be able to invite a contact who already has a paid CertainSafe account. This lets the 2 of you share information with one another, have safe chats, touch upon one another’s information, and so forth.
Secure Chat
Every time you touch upon a file, the file’s proprietor will get a notification. You may nearly keep it up a web-based dialog utilizing feedback, however Secure Chat is simpler. Just right-click a contact and select Send Message. You can now begin chatting, in posts as much as 150 characters. Your chat historical past with every contact stays for reference, and also you get a notification when there is a new response.
What’s safe about Secure Chat? Steven Russo, Executive VP of CertainSafe, defined that safe chat messages are MicroEncrypted, simply as your information are, and every publish is secured independently. “This is absolutely fantastic for organizations that need to share [sensitive] information all day long while collaborating,” mentioned Russo. “Our chat is hosted in a PCI DSS Level 1 Environment, and it’s HIPAA compliant and instant.”
Office Integration on Hiatus
When I final reviewed CertainSafe, I reported on its integration with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word. The Outlook add-on allowed sharing of encrypted attachments with different CertainSafe customers, and the Word add-on allowed opening encrypted paperwork immediately from CertainSafe, and saving your adjustments again to the cloud.
CertainSafe has had a makeover since that final assessment, and the replace hasn’t but reached the Office add-ons. However, getting them again up and operating is on the roadmap.
Local-only encryption packages InterCrypto Advanced Encryption Package and Ranquel Technologies CryptoForge provide a their very own very alternative ways to speak securely. The former encrypts and decrypts textual content from the clipboard, making it simple to safe all or a part of an e-mail message or IM chat. The latter can encrypt something right into a block of encrypted textual content, so you’ll be able to securely ship information even when attachments aren’t supported.
In an analogous trend, you possibly can use AxCrypt Premium, Cypherix SecureIT, or one other local-only encryption software to manually encrypt information earlier than storing them within the cloud. But none of those native or cloud-based options strategy CertainSafe’s mixture of utmost safety and ease of use (although AxCrypt comes shut, at the very least for native encryption).
A Powerful, Flexible Solution
Not each funds can cowl $12 per 30 days to retailer information securely in CertainSafe Digital Safety Deposit Box, for positive. However, for many who want to guard really delicate private or enterprise knowledge, CertainSafe is a superb selection. You can get at your information from any browser, on any platform. The multistep handshake ensures that solely you’ll be able to entry them, until you select to share knowledge securely. And MicroEncryption expertise signifies that even when a gang of thieves liberated a complete a server, they’d solely get bits and items, not entire information.
Other cloud storages companies emphasize completely different wants. If collaborating on information is your important want, Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive are good decisions. Box shines at compatibility with different companies, whereas IDrive focuses on the central activity of backup. These apps stay our prime picks for cloud storage and file syncing.
When your goal is simply to guard your delicate information by encrypting them domestically, not within the cloud, AxCrypt Premium gives a contemporary, easy-to-use interface with some surprisingly superior options. Folder Lock combines a variety of encryption options with a shiny, easy-to-use interface. In the encryption realm, these two share prime honors with CertainSafe.