TeamDrive named winner of the Diplomatic Council Cloud Sync&Share Services report 2017

TeamDrive is the winner of the DC Cloud Sync&Share Services report 2017 of the Diplomatic Council (DC), a global think tank in consultative status with the United Nations. 

Volker Oboda, Detlef Schmuck and Hang Nguyen Diplomatic Council

The report was compiled due to a growing demand for an impartial comparison of IT services that offer a secure and reliable means of exchanging data over the internet (the cloud). In particular, the apparent “rampant activities of the intelligence services”, the rise in cybercrime including industrial espionage, and the legal uncertainty surrounding some global data protection regulations have resulted in increasing requests for us to recommend individual services. According to the report, the German-based service TeamDrive is the most secure services. 

Three security criteria

Widely-used alternatives from US suppliers, such as Dropbox, Box, Google Drive or Microsoft One Drive, are expressly not recommended, because, according to the report, they “do not support significant security criteria such as end-to-end encryption, a zero knowledge system and hybrid data storage”. The Global Information Security Forum of the Diplomatic Council classifies these three security characteristics as particularly significant. End-to-end encryption ensures that data is not left unencrypted either during transfers or when stored on the Internet. A zero knowledge system means that even the supplier cannot decrypt the data and therefore cannot read it – not even if required to do so by a court order, for example. Hybrid data storage means that the user can choose the place of storage and apply additional classifications. Redundant storage and unchangeable version control ensure that no data is lost either through technical failures or as a result of attacks via the Internet. The relevant data can always be restored. The think tank’s report describes hybrid data storage as a “crucial criterion for selecting a cloud-based sync & share service”, in order to ensure that, even if data is lost in the cloud, this data still exists.

12 services compared

In total, the Diplomatic Council examined twelve cloud-based sync & share services for its investigation: Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Microsoft One Drive for business, Spider Oak, Syncplicity, TeamDrive, SSP Europe, Telekom MagentaCloud, Strato HiDrive, Ctera Portal and Tresorit. As well as being the most secure services according to the report, TeamDrive and Secure Data Space are also credited by the think tank’s Global Information Security Forum for being the only service to receive the ULD Data Protection Seal of Approval from the Independent State Center for Data Protection. TeamDrive is the only service recommended by the German Lawyers Association (DAV) for professionals with confidentiality obligations, such as attorneys and notaries. In the opinion of the Security Forum of the Diplomatic Council, a service that meets this high standard is also worth recommending for industrial use.

Dr. Thomas Lapp, Chairman of the Global Information Security Forum of the Diplomatic Council says: “One would hope that the operators of all the services recognize the security defects in their services immediately and remedy them as swiftly as possible. A high level of security is in the interests of all stakeholders.”