Is Dropbox safe?

Is Dropbox safe? a reader asks…

Hi Chris, I’ve been looking at online file storage solutions, and am about to decide on Dropbox. I have two questions for you, first, is Dropbox safe for me to use? I read all the time about companies getting hacked and am worried about storing my files online. I don’t have anything really important to anybody but me, but don’t want it all getting to some hacker somewhere. Second, which plan would you recommend? I have a ton of digital photos and quite a few home movies. Thanks for your advice!

Your first question is relatively easy to answer. The biggest factor in the safety of Dropbox (or any online service) is your login credentials, e.g., your password. These days it’s trivial for a hacker to crack any password 8 characters or less. Certainly it’s do-able for them to crack passwords under 13 characters. So the more characters you use in your password, the less chance of anybody being able to hack into it.

Even better, enable two-factor authentication on your Dropbox account, which sends you a text message with a code you need to type in to gain access to your account. The second most important aspect of that is the security of your computer (or any computer or device where you have Dropbox installed). If your computer can be hacked, then they could access everything in your Dropbox account, since it’s a copy of the Dropbox folder on your computer. Same for your smartphone.

So you need to secure your computer from hackers by using a good security suite (my current favorite is Bitdefender Total Security), a good anti-malware program (e.g., Malwarebytes Anti-Malware), and a good anti-exploit program (e.g., Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit). The threats to your computer’s security have evolved and no one program can provide the best protection against all threat types anymore. I recommend these three for maximum protection.

For your smartphone, you should secure access to it with an impossible-to-guess code. The 4-digit codes standard on iPhones are ok as long as they are random numbers, and as long as you have the 10-tries-and-wipe setting turned on. That’s under Settings > Touch ID & Passcode > and the Erase Data slider all the way at the bottom. Turn that on and 10 failed attempts to unlock the iPhone will wipe it for you. For Android smartphones it’s a little more complicated. First you have to make sure you only install apps from the Google Play Store (apps from other sources can be infected). Second, you need to set a good passcode to unlock your phone. Visit the Device  Settings app and scroll down to the Security section.

With a strong and unguessable passcode protecting your Dropbox account and by you following safe computing practices, the chances of anyone gaining unauthorized access to your files is infinitesimal. Your dropbox account is encrypted on the Dropbox servers. Information is transferred between your online account and your computer/smartphone in encrypted form. No one can gain access to it from Dropbox without a court order (read Dropbox’s security information here).

Your second question is much easier. Dropbox currently has a basic (free) plan with 2gb of storage space, a Pro ($9.99/month or $99/year) plan with 1tb of storage space, and a business ($15/month or $150/year) plan with unlimited storage space.

You can quickly find out how much storage space you need by measuring the folder size of your Pictures and videos folders. In Windows 7, open your User folders (click Start, then your username at the top-right of the start menu), and right-click on each folder in turn. Right-clicking gives you a menu, and at the bottom of that menu is the Properties menu item. Left-click Properties to see how much disk space that folder is taking.

I’m guessing that between your pictures and your videos you’ll have a lot more than 2gb of space used, but almost certainly a lot less than 1tb (approx. 1,000gb). So the Dropbox Pro plan is probably going to be your best bet. Pay annually and you’ll get a price break.

Dropbox is great as long as you want to have a mirror copy of your Dropbox folder on your computer and the online Dropbox account. But some folks these days may want to have a much larger repository of files stored online. They prefer to only have a few files actually on their computer. If that’s you, take a look at Amazon Cloud Drive, which offers 5gb for free, and only $60gb/year for unlimited storage space.

Rather than mirroring a folder on your computer, you upload files to Cloud Drive. You can then delete the files on your computer and the files in Cloud Drive are unaffected. This is a great solution for folks who have limited computer hard drive space. They even have a $12/year plan that’s just for photos, and either have a free trial. Amazon’s security is pretty much the same as Dropbox, so it’s a great alternative for certain situations.