Not So Secure Ways
With more services and documents transitioning to the online world, the need to be able send files securely is becoming a necessity. There are so many ways to share files with friends, family, and colleagues, but not all of them are as safe as you might think. The most common way to share a document with someone is via e-mail. While quiet convenient, as e-mail is generally platform agnostic, the habit of using it can be dangerous if a threat actor attempts to send you a malicious attachment that looks very similar to any other e-mail with an attachment and out of muscle memory, you open it. Of course an argument could be made that "I am careful with e-mail attachments so this won't happen," but it only takes one mis-click or lapse to infect your device. There are also other platforms such as social media sites and collaboration tools that offer file sharing. These can be great from an ease of use and accessibility point of view, but be wary of privacy policies and data retention policies of these services. Once you post something out in the wild, it is likely there forever in an uncontrollable environment.
More Secure Ways
Collaboration is key to progress. The faster and easier it is to share your work, the faster and easier it will be to progress forward. Camosun wants to help facilitate the collaboration between its community members and provide a safe a secure option to do so. By default, faculty and staff have access to Microsoft OneDrive and all of the Microsoft365 tools that come along with it. Students are able to opt-in to this service by logging in to Microsoft365. Within this environment, users can host their files for private, personal use and know that their files are safe in the cloud. They can also share files and folders with colleagues or team members and use the enhanced collaboration features (think Google Drive/Docs but Microsoft). You can use this environment and know that as long as the file is stored here, it has been scanned by Microsoft for security vulnerabilities. Integrating OneDrive, and Microsoft365 as a whole, into your work flow can not only help increase productivity, but also help keep you safe as you collaborate digitally.
