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The keys belong into the hands of the users: TeamDrive receives fourth ULD data privacy recertification in a row

The confidence in an encrypted communication for the transmission of sensitive information over the Internet is becoming increasingly important. Here, the Independent Regional Centre for Data Protection of Schleswig-Holstein
(Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz Schleswig-Holstein (ULD)) lead by Thilo Weichert is a pioneer when it comes to independent verification and certification of privacy and security-related issues in the field of information technology. In recent years TeamDrive has established itself as the Dropbox alternative for the enterprise and in terms of safety sets consistently on an end-to-end encryption. The vendor from Hamburg, Germany and Gartner Cool Vendor 2013 in Privacy successfully received its fourth ULD data privacy recertification in a row.

The keys belong exclusively into the hands of the users

As part of the recertification the security of TeamDrive in version 3 was increased again. In addition to the 256-bit AES end-to-end encryption, the security has been further enhanced with an RSA 3072 encryption. The importance of the end-to-end encryption of all communication still rises. This means that the whole process, which a user passes through the solution, is encrypted continuously from start to the end.

In this context it is very important to understand that the private key which is used to access the data and the system only may exclusively be owned by the user. And is only stored encrypted on the local system of the user. The vendor may have no ways to restore this private key and never get access to the stored data.

Despite all the promises, encryption is useless if providers like Dropbox or Box have the key and can decrypt all the data. The control over this exclusively belongs into the hands of the users. This must be taken into account by each company when choosing a trusted vendor.

By Rene Buest

Rene Buest is Gartner Analyst covering Infrastructure Services & Digital Operations. Prior to that he was Director of Technology Research at Arago, Senior Analyst and Cloud Practice Lead at Crisp Research, Principal Analyst at New Age Disruption and member of the worldwide Gigaom Research Analyst Network. Rene is considered as top cloud computing analyst in Germany and one of the worldwide top analysts in this area. In addition, he is one of the world’s top cloud computing influencers and belongs to the top 100 cloud computing experts on Twitter and Google+. Since the mid-90s he is focused on the strategic use of information technology in businesses and the IT impact on our society as well as disruptive technologies.

Rene Buest is the author of numerous professional technology articles. He regularly writes for well-known IT publications like Computerwoche, CIO Magazin, LANline as well as Silicon.de and is cited in German and international media – including New York Times, Forbes Magazin, Handelsblatt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Wirtschaftswoche, Computerwoche, CIO, Manager Magazin and Harvard Business Manager. Furthermore Rene Buest is speaker and participant of experts rounds. He is founder of CloudUser.de and writes about cloud computing, IT infrastructure, technologies, management and strategies. He holds a diploma in computer engineering from the Hochschule Bremen (Dipl.-Informatiker (FH)) as well as a M.Sc. in IT-Management and Information Systems from the FHDW Paderborn.