Secure File Transfer Services Protect Yourself in the 21st Century

Secure file transfer services have never been more important to businesses and the public at large. After all, with millions of pieces of sensitive data at stake, including everything from customer information to private correspondence, protecting digital data should be a top priority for businesses, governments, and ordinary citizens alike. Look no further than Target, for example, which in 2013 lost the account information, including credit and debit card information, of nearly 40 million customers. Target’s data delivery services and data loss prevention solutions were clearly not up to par, and as a result millions of customer’s privacy were violated.

And that is only one company. In the United States, an estimated 70% of businesses will experience some kind of data loss due to accidents, system failure, malware, or physical damage such as fire or flooding. In 2013 alone, nearly half of all business enterprises lost data stored in a cloud system. Of those businesses, 66% failed to fully retrieve their data. Needless to say, without managed file transfer services, massive data loss is also a possibility — a possibility no business wants to go through.

There are a number of secure file transfer services to choose from. File Transfer Protocol (FTP), for example, is a standard method of sending files to and from a client via a server. With the proper security measures, FTP can be a very reliable and straightforward method of sharing digital information. Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), another method of digital transfer, is structured differently that FTP but produces the same results. Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption code that is primarily used for email but can be applied to other things such as digital files and directories.

No matter what method a business uses, the point is this: secure file transfer services are truly one of the few services this day and age that can protect the sensitive data we all depend on.