Companies across the United States — in fact, across the world — are paying closer attention to managed file transfer services. The business world is increasingly reliant on electronic services for sending, storing, and receiving documents. From email messages to cloud storage to more sophisticated transfer protocols and encryption codes, electronic transfer services make sure businesses get the information they need, when they need it.
Businesses have plenty of reasons for maintaining secure data delivery methods. In 2011 for example, approximately 535 businesses reported serious data breaches in the U.S. The breaches caused more than 30 million private customer records — including personal information, credit card numbers, birthdays, etc. — to be stolen or destroyed. Data loss prevention solutions, therefore, is very much in demand in the U.S.
When companies set up managed file transfer services, they have a lot of options to choose from, one more daunting than the next. To better illustrate what data delivery services do, here are three kinds of transfer services available to businesses today:
- File Transfer Protocol: File transfer protocol (FTP) is one of the oldest and most used transfer services today. FTP enables various computers (or “hosts”) to send and receive files from each other via a main server.
- Secure File Transfer Protocol: Secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) is similar to FTP in acronym only. SFTP sends files to and from using a sophistocated data stream designed with extra security to fend against hackers and unwanted users.
- Pretty Good Privacy: Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption program meant for email but also applicable to files, directories, and other kinds of electronic files. Encryption is a special computer code that masks the content of digital files (known as “plaintext”) by using complex algorithms to create a separate language (known as “ciphertext”), which is then translated back to the original content.
For more information about managed file transfer services, feel free to leave a comment or question at the bottom.