Problems with Large File Transfers

Using FTP

According to the S C Magazine and Egress Technologies 2012 survey, “Data on the Move“, 50% of us use FTP sites to exchange files that are too large to send by email. What’s more worrying is that the user figure jumps to 71.6% who use FTP sites or consumer file sharing sites to exchange sensitive information. We all know how frustrating it can be when we have a large file that we need to send to a colleague but either the company email or your ISP prohibit the sending or large files. It’s no wonder that consumer file sharing sites get used more and more for this type of file exchange. The release of recent easy to use apps by some of these file-sharing sites has further increased their use.

But is this a sensible decision? It’s one thing to send a bunch of holiday snaps to a friend via this method but do we really want company reports and the like to be exchanged in such a public way? Probably not and in some cases such as medical records or legal advice to a client it probably transgresses, if not the law certainly what would be held as best practice. Having possibly sensitive information stored in clear text on a site somewhere out there, subject to a level of security that we aren’t sure about and subject to a legal jurisdiction that maybe very different to our own really isn’t acceptable. So what are the alternatives?

Your Options

If on second thought you have discounted an FTP or consumer file transfer site for reasons of complexity and or security then historically your options were fairly limited: Print the information out and send it by post, copy the file to a CD or DVD or transfer the file to a memory stick and then post it or possibly hand deliver it. None of the above are particularly convenient or for that matter very instantaneous, however today there are more elegant and secure solutions available to you.

A Secure Easy Alternative

Happily these new emerging technologies are both easy to use and secure. One such product I have experience of manages this, once set-up, with a simple click. That click encrypts the file and then delivers it to a hosted FTP site. That site can either be your own site within your own network or one of any number of selected secure FTP sites geographically located around the world. In either case the intended recipient will be emailed directly via the same click, to alert them to the awaiting encrypted file. Once notified the intended recipient and only the intended recipient can download and decrypt the file or files without further delay. Very smooth and very secure. Oh! Would you like to know the name of the product I’m talking about? Egress’s Switch, the UK IT Industry Awards sponsored by the BCS The Chartered Institute for IT also voted it “Cloud Provider of the Year 2013”.