LPM Tip

Layering security in the cloud: Dropbox and pre-encryption

Attorneys should make security a deciding factor when choosing cloud storage tools. Nicole Black relays a series of questions to ask of potential providers, here.

Dropbox is a popular cloud storage and sharing option among lawyers. However, lingering security questions have always attached to Dropbox, as Geri Dreiling, at LawyerTechReview, relays, in part, here. And, recently, due to a system coding glitch, Dropbox accounts became open access (any password would work for any account) for four hours.

Does this make Dropbox unusable? Perhaps not. LifeHacker offers several potential solutions for securing your Dropbox data, using encryption tools, like TrueCrypt and SecretSync.

This method of applying a "pre-encryption" technique is not, however, without issues, as Tomasz Stasiuk, of Planet 10 Technologies, relays near the tail end of this long, but enlightening guest post to Ben Stevens' The Mac Lawyer blog.

So, while Dropbox may have dropped the ball, you don't necessarily have to drop the box . . . if you have patience for the application of some security workarounds.

Tip courtesy of Rodney Dowell, Jared Correia and Rachel Willcox, Law Office Management Assistance Program.

Published August 25, 2011

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