Security in Google Drive: How secure is the data?

Many users have had problems using the cloud service recently. There was no connection to Google Drive. But how do users access their data when the Google Drive is offline?

Google Drive offline – What happened?

Earlier this year, Google Drive failed for many users. Staff at an educational institution reported problems via Twitter to responsible Google employees. They promised to fix the outage immediately. However, the problems reoccurred several times. Many affected users were in the USA. But there were also problems in several other countries, including Germany.

The users had to wait a few days before they were able to fully use their data in the cloud service again. After the interruption, Google apologized and promised more reliability of the system. The problems Google Drive had as cloud storage in the background are still not known today.

The data on Google Drive

Google Drive is a classic cloud storage device used to store, manage and exchange different types of files. Users can automatically synchronize data online and access it via app from their smartphones, tablets or other devices.

Private individuals use the cloud primarily to store photos, videos or documents in a storage space. But companies also use cloud storage to work together on office documents. Collaboration and updating of data can be realized automatically in real time with Google Docs.

But what happens when the service is offline, as it was at the beginning of the year?

How do I get my data?

Google Drive offers the possibility to activate offline access to use files and documents. This is the case if you have a poor Internet connection or no network is available abroad. In this mode, data is stored locally on the computer or smartphone. However, there are restrictions. The meta data of the files are not available offline. An overview of all activity logs and versions is only possible with a service such as TeamDrive.

Where does Google Drive store the data?

The Group’s data centers are located all over the world. Most servers are located in the USA, because Google is an American company. And this is where the problem lies.

The US government is allowed to access personal files of people. The Patriot Act is the basis for this procedure. It legitimizes the access in case of suspected violations of laws. There are repeated reports about the weak data protection in the USA. Authorities such as the FBI, CIA or NSA even have the right to access sensitive data without a court order. Google can do little about this.

Users of Google Drive should be aware of this situation. Foreign access is threatened if personal documents, photos and videos are stored on a US server. TeamDrive, on the other hand, only stores data on servers in Germany.

What about the data protection of Google Drive? We will now take a closer look at the protective devices compared to TeamDrive.

Data protection in comparison with TeamDrive

While transferring data to Google servers, the files are protected with AES-128-bit encryption. It is also possible to use two-factor authentication for your own user account. Data protectors complain that Google Drive still does not offer the higher encryption variant “AES-256-bit” comprehensively. Here TeamDrive as a cloud provider is already one step further.

Basically, reliability is a weak point with Google Drive. If the servers in the USA fail, access is impossible. If there are problems with the connection, content is often synchronized incorrectly. Then it happens that users work on different versions of files and do not notice it.

In comparison, TeamDrive offers reliable functions and secure data in the cloud. All data is stored in Europe and is therefore subject to the strict data protection guidelines of the DSGVO. Users therefore have much less to worry about unauthorized access to data. TeamDrive guarantees this security through multiple protection devices.

This means that data sent from one location to another is encrypted at all times. Even TeamDrive as a cloud provider has no access and can never view files. The cloud of Google does not offer this guarantee if users do not help themselves with additional platforms for encryption.

Google Drive without end-to-end encryption

While Google Drive does not offer end-to-end encryption, this encryption is standard with TeamDrive. In this way, all personal data is automatically and fully protected against unauthorized access and misuse.

The cryptographic procedure behind this is very simple. The asymmetric encryption consists of a key pair, the symmetric encryption consists of a key. Both encryptions are combined with each other in TeamDrive.

The security meets high standards. TeamDrive has been further optimizing the respective encryption methods right from the start. This makes it absolutely difficult for hackers to access sensitive data. This principle makes TeamDrive one of the most secure cloud providers on the entire market.