How MediaLab keeps your data safe

Imagine walking down the street, handing someone a usb-drive and telling them to bring it to your friend who lives on the other side of town. Even if the drive gets delivered, it doesn’t feel really secure, does it? You’ll never know what happened to it on the way there. Yet, this is exactly what happens when you use free file transfer services like WeTransfer or Dropbox.

Every once in a while, data leaks and hacking attempts make headlines again. The most recent example I’ve read about is Uber, who announced in September that their systems had been compromised because a hacker gained access to one of their contractor’s accounts.

Although in this particular case no user data was leaked, it once again goes to show that attackers keep finding new and creative ways to gain access to a company’s system – even if it’s a multi-billion dollar one. Unfortunately, it’s often us humans that are the weak link in a data breach. In the Uber incident for example, the hacker ultimately gained access because the contractor accepted a two-factor login approval request on his phone.

Companies will often undertake action when it’s too late and they’ve already been compromised. But it’s better to be safe than sorry. Don’t worry: there are still enough measures you can take to make sure your data is as safe as possible. One of them is not using a free service like WeTransfer or Dropbox for your file transfer. While they’re perfectly fine for consumers, they’re simply not up to standard for corporate use.

?

Our media management platform MediaLab makes sure your files are secure. Before, during and after the transfer. We realize how valuable your media content is, so we’ve taken the right measures to keep your data safe. This is how we do that.

?

Single Sign-on

Remember, back in the day, when it was still ok to use one password for every account you had? Those days are long gone, and unless you’re one of the people who secretly still use the same password with minor variations for everything (shame on you!), you probably use a password manager like LastPass or KeePass to track all your accounts. But what happens when you throw all your work-related accounts into the mix? And what about accounts of employees that have left the company?

MediaLab offers support for Single Sign-on with corporate credentials. It requires a one-time setup process so we know where to authenticate your users. Once that has been set up, all user management is done automatically.

Encryption in Transit

At MediaLab, we use Encryption in Transit for our files. You can compare it to putting valuable goods into an armored vehicle for transport. Data is encrypted before transmission, then the computer system endpoints are authenticated, and finally the file is decrypted and verified when it arrives. This way, your media files are protected if communications are intercepted while they move between two computer systems.

Encryption at Rest

But just protecting your files when they are in transit obviously isn’t enough: they need to be safe when stored as well. We call this Encryption at Rest. It was designed to prevent an attacker from accessing data by ensuring it’s encrypted when on disk. If an attacker obtains access to a disk with encrypted files but not the encryption keys, the attacker must defeat the encryption to read the data: an extra layer of security for your media content.

MediaLab Link

Let’s be honest, sometimes all the security settings and permissions in place are just too complicated. That quick email you need to send with a large video attached, or the contract your client needs you to sign: all those small one-offs that you want to share without having to jump through any hoops.

This is exactly where your employees start getting creative. You can tell them to only use approved software and not anonymous file sharing platforms, but then what? If you don't facilitate the tools to get it done easily, they will find other ways to get it done.

That’s why we came up with MediaLab Link: easy file transferring with no strings attached, except that the Terms of Use have been ticked off and that you don’t need to worry about old data showing up in a data leak a few years from now.

?This new add-on is available for all MediaLab clients. Read more here.