With millions of employees around the world working from home, cloud storage and collaboration services like Dropbox have become more important. The current lockdown situation across the globe pushed even traditional businesses to use cloud and give up their legacy file systems. In this article, we described how Dropbox files can be shared securely and reduce the possibility of a data breach.
File Sharing in Dropbox
Sharing files in Dropbox is very easy. Most of the Dropbox’s sharing features are available within the file or folder sharing interface. The above image shows standard file-sharing options in Dropbox. As evident from the image, a file or folder can be shared with an individual or a group. It can be shared with anyone outside of Dropbox as a simple link unless you are a Dropbox Business user and your admin disabled the option. The owner of the data can grant access to editing or simply share it in a ‘view-only’ mode. These are very basic options. Advanced secure sharing features are discussed below.
Set Passwords to Files and Folders to Be Shared
If you are sharing sensitive or critical data, it is always a wise thing to put a password to it. This way, unauthorized access can be prevented. Even if someone who is not supposed to access the file or folder managed to get the link, they will fail to open it as they don’t know the password.
Set Expiration Dates
If you create a shared link with an expiration date, the file can’t be accessed after the data expiration. This feature comes in handy when someone doesn’t want to use the password. Without an expiration date, the file or folder will be in a shared state forever until you, the owner decides to delete it.
Disable the Download Option
This is another easy-to-use security control. By simply enabling this feature, you prevent users from downloading the file to their computer or phone. If they have edit access, they will be able to access the documents online in the browser and edit them. This ensures that your data (either personal or business) remain secure.
Control Your Organization’s Dropbox Sharing Settings
Dropbox provides some security features for Dropbox admins to exercise greater control on the business data. As seen in the image, a Dropbox admin can configure sharing settings as per their company’s data security policies.
External file-sharing can be disabled. Once disabled, team members will no longer be able to share content with anyone outside of their organization. Once an admin enables or disables a feature here, it will reflect in the entire team’s user accounts.
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