Worst Case Scenario A single hacker could have gained access to thousands of employee data sets and sensitive information. Worse yet, many of those documents were publicly available. “If you found some files in a trash can, you can just go look at it on Box—but it doesn’t know you,” Ropos told Futurism. “Once you download something from Box, it’s no longer your problem. You can download it from your iPad, share it, you name it.” In response to the incident, Box provided a statement on its website: When we learned that an intruder stole data from a subset of Box users (less than 200,000), we immediately took action to secure the remainder of our users. We are confident that no unauthorized individual has access to any Box user data, or other data for that matter. We do continue to work with law enforcement to trace the cause of the breach. We know that we must do more. We must do better. Our focus now is on regaining your trust. Sometime in the future At the end of the day, the key to any successful cloud backup is that it should be used to its fullest potential, not just as a backup service. If you want to set up your own cloud backup, use a dedicated storage account that encrypts your data. When it’s all said and done, it’s up to you to take charge of your privacy by not sharing the same information across multiple services. If you don’t, the data will continue to be vulnerable. You can use an antivirus service to make sure no one is lurking around your cloud storage account. For example, you can get a subscription to Bitdefender if you like to keep things extra safe. However, the good news is that cloud services such as Google Drive and Dropbox use industry-standard security measures to encrypt their data—even if it’s left unattended. For this reason, there’s still hope that other major companies won’t suffer from this same security flaw. Check out our guides on how to backup your important files and how to safely dispose of your old electronic devices. Editors' Recommendations