Techno-News Blog

August 28, 2013

A growing body of research shows how to use cloud storage synchronization services to get around firewalls

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 12:25 am

By David Talbot, Technology Review

Hundreds of millions of people rely on Dropbox and similar services to store, share, and update their files. Dropbox and similar services have exploded in popularity in recent years because users find it so convenient to simply drag files to an icon that puts that data in the cloud, shares it with others, and automatically syncs new versions across multiple devices. But ease of use and insecurity often go hand in hand, and now researchers are revealing an uncomfortable truth: if a computer with Dropbox functionality is compromised, the synching feature allows any malware installed by the attacker to reach other machines and networks using the service. “People don’t consider that once you have Dropbox configured, anything you put in the synchronization folder gets a free pass through the firewall,” says Jacob Williams, a digital forensic scientist at CSR Group. “We’ve tested this on several services, and it gets data right through the firewall.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518506/dropbox-and-similar-services-can-sync-malware/

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