Windows 10: My tax document is stored in Cloud automatically. How safe is Cloud?

My tax document with important info is stored in Cloud automatically. How protected is Cloud?

:)

 

How safe is the Cloud?

Explained in a simplified way, a cloud (in IT) is a remote storage location for any data. It can be a server owned by Microsoft for Office 365, Outlook.com or OneDrive users, or anything similar. The data is stored on remote servers and you access it over the network; you can sync parts or all of it to a local storage (HDD / SSD on your PC), but even if you lose the local storage, the data is still stored on cloud servers.

But that's not all: if you have ever used email, if you have joined our forums, if you have ever read an article at CNN.com, in general if you have ever used Internet, you have already used cloud.

When you join these British forums (yes, the company who owns these forums is not American!), you need a browser. You tell your your browser to contact a cloud server over the Internet (those are in the US!) and retrieve the data you want to access, a page on these forums of ours. You click a screenshot in a post to open it from the cloud server, it will be shown on your local computer but you don't have to store it locally on your PC.

The same with your emails. When I send you an email, it will be in the cloud. You open your email application or browser if using web based email, see the title of my message and click it; this will retrieve the message from the cloud, in this case your email provider's server, and show it to you.

Basically everything on the Internet is in the cloud.

Microsoft is one of the major players in the game. If we clients could no longer trust cloud service providers like MS, the modern computing would be in big trouble. The cloud part of the Office 365 subscription is the OneDrive; it's then up to each individual user to decide if he / she wants to utilize this wonderful space saving 1 TB storage each Office 365 user gets or not.

I use OneDrive extensively, saving all my personal data, documents, videos, pictures and music alike in OneDrive. I can access my data from any device, if my computer crashes it's not a big deal because everything is still there, in the cloud.

OneDrive as cloud storage is much safer than your local PC can ever be.

Guys, I am willing to make a bet. The terms:

I give you control of my PC in a Skype meeting, giving you credentials of one of my Office 365 / OneDrive accounts. You sign in using my credentials and my browser (easy to organize in Skype meeting), we need to be online at the same time because to sign in to my accounts you also need the Two-Step Verification code sent as a text message to my mobile phone.

When you have signed in, you can change the password of my account to whatever you want to. Again, we need to be online at the same time because this, too, requires the security code sent to my phone. Then I will remove cookies and the sign-in information from the browser and the bet can start.

From that moment I give you 30 days time to get in to my account, using any method. If you manage it I will pay you $1,000. If you don't get in, you pay me $1,000. OK? To make this fair let's together select an unbiased fellow member and we all send first the $1,000 to him / her to show we are serious, and then start counting. You have 30 days, you have my MS account email address and it's password, all you have to do to get my $1,000 is to sign in and take a screenshot to prove it. If you cannot manage this in 30 days, I will get your money.

I'm sure you both are more than willing to do this! Basically, in my honest opinion you should either accept this bet or stop telling that it's not safe, that my MS account / OneDrive is hackable. If you think so, prove it. Show me one article, blog post or similar with factual information that an MS account with Two-Step Verification has been hacked. You must have some facts to support your statements!

Wishing you a nice evening, anticipating a cash flow,

 

Cloud Services and Cortona, the grab for your money

Figures are approx. as they can change.

$949.00 1TB $13.99 plus tax monthly (based on 5 years)

$ 90.00 1TB hard drive retail incl. tax (based on keeping it the same 5 years)

HD: To be hacked you have to be specifically hacked.

CLOUD: One of millions of people all hacked at the same time very possible . Data breaches are very common.

HD: Stored on your computer and safe depending on your security.

Cloud: Stored on server and safe depending on their security and under their control.
HD: Private data stored on HD remains private

CLOUD: Data cannot be considered private and is NOT your data.

 

How safe is the Cloud?


I have a friend who wants to install Office 365. She is intrigued by The Cloud without really understanding what it is and this has attracted her to a version of Office that uses the Cloud. I'm afraid she has a rather exalted view of what the Cloud is: she is asking me whether she even has to take backups of her Word documents and powerpoint presentation if they are in the Cloud. She seems to think that they might be completely safe there and that it would be impossible to lose documents from the Cloud.

I have to admit to having very little detailed knowledge of the Cloud myself. I had assumed the Cloud is just a pretty name for servers that are as terrestrial as any other computer and therefore just as vulnerable to power failures, disk crashes, and the problems that affect ordinary computer users. I suspect that is entirely possible to lose documents or powerpoint presentations that are in the Cloud just as it is for the hard drive on my laptop to crash.

Am I correct? Would she still be well-advised to take regular backups of the things she puts on the Cloud? Or is the Cloud massively redundant with techniques like RAID5 so that even a hard disk crash on a Cloud server would not cause a loss of data?

Also, how secure is the Cloud? Let's say that the Cloud is working perfectly and has no hardware issues of any kind: how hard is it for someone to hack into the Cloud and steal her data? Or is everything coming and going thoroughly encrypted and invulnerable to interception? (Okay, I didn't really mean that last bit. I know that anything can be hacked if someone wants it badly enough. In her case, her files are mostly cooking recipes and family photos, not things affecting national security, so I'm just trying to figure out if it would be reasonably secure or if the average 4 year old could hack it on his Xbox without breaking a sweat.)