DivShare Security Scare - More Trouble in Online Storage Space
DivShare, an online service for storing and sharing video, photos, music and documents, has had a security breach. The company announced on its blog tonight that "a malicious user" had accessed its database, "which included user e-mail addresses and other basic profile information." The startup states that "no financial information has been accessed by any unauthorized parties." After the Omnidrive troubles, it's yet another reminder that storing your files on a startup's servers is risky business.
DivShare has been in the news before for dubious reasons. In November it put itself up for sale on a domain name selling forum. DivShare co-founder David Altschu told VentureBeat at the time that "we feel the product is complete, and we want to find a company that can help support [its] growth and keep ahead of it, which has been our problem for a little while now."
It doesn't appear as if the sale happened - an update on DivShare's blog in January claimed that it was "turning down some big buyout offers".
While it's good that DivShare has been open about the security breach and they appear to have taken swift measures in fixing it, unfortunately it raises more concerns about startups which offer online storage. When it comes to any personal data online, as a user you want to be absolutely certain that it is both secure and going to be available in future - no matter what.
Would you trust your data with a company that has this to say after it's database has been compromised: "...we recommend that you change your account password and the passwords on any private folders as a security precaution." Yikes!
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What's going on? First DocSync joined deadpool, divshare for hacked... Maybe it's safe not to wander in the cloud? :)
Posted by: nlupus.myopenid.com
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June 17, 2008 3:24 AM
I'm interested to see that your comments are about "Startups".
In the UK, the press recently has been all about major companies (high street names) losing customers' information, INCLUDING credit card details.
I'd be interested to see any figures showing that startups had been more risky than established names???
Hi Richard,
The bottom line for most users is that nobody actually wants their content. Where is the value in some other random user's data? My wedding pictures are invaluable to me, but are worse than useless to a stranger.
As the amount of aggregated online user data grows, the ability to derive value by gaining access to the raw data declines geometrically. Its like opening lockers at a train station at random (only much worse!).
On the other hand, profile information, credit card info etc. is incredibly valuable. However the risk of being compromised is not greater with online storage vendors than any other kind of online hosted service.
Joe.
CEO PutPlace.
What happened over at DivShare this weekend is truly unfortunate for all involved - our best wishes go to them and their users. It seems that all of the files are back online as of this morning (per their maintenance blog). Just wanted to chime in and re-state how seriously we take the security of our members' data here at Box.net. We continue to make this our top priority. To read our security policy, click here: http://www.box.net/shared/w31wi7688c
Please feel free to contact me directly with any questions or concerns. Take good care,
Kendra
kendra@box.net
On the subject of file backup, sharing and storage ...
Online backup is becoming common these days. It is estimated that 70-75% of all PC's will be connected to online backup services with in the next decade.
Thousands of online backup companies exist, from one guy operating in his apartment to fortune 500 companies.
Choosing the best online backup company will be very confusing and difficult. One website I find very helpful in making a decision to pick an online backup company is:
http://www.BackupReview.info
This site lists more than 400 online backup companies in its directory and ranks the top 25 on a monthly basis.
I discovered a Memopal (www.memopal.com) "cutting edge solution for online
backup"
They merged online backup, online storage and file sharing services into one product.