At Sync, our mission is to provide a safe space for the world to collaborate. Protecting your safety is at the heart of everything we do, and today we’re proud to announce that Sync has successfully completed a System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type 1 audit.

SOC 2 compliance reinforces our ongoing commitment to keep your data safe. If your organization processes confidential customer data, SOC provides assurance that you can safely use Sync to keep it secure, with industry-leading security, availability, and processing compliance built-in.

What is SOC?

SOC is the most widely-recognized framework for auditing security best practices in a standardized way. It certifies that comprehensive information security controls are in place, meeting the American Institute of CPA’s (AICPA) five Trust Services and Integrity Principles:

• Security – protecting your data from unauthorized access
• Availability – ensuring your data is available for operation and use
• Processing Integrity – system processing is accurate, timely, and authorized
• Confidentiality – data designated confidential is protected in accordance with laws
• Privacy – personal information is collected, used, retained, disclosed, and destroyed in compliance with our privacy policy

A trusted third-party SOC report provides security validation for organizations safeguarding user data. Our audit was completed by Sensiba San Filippo, LLP, a leading CPA and business consulting organization.

What does SOC 2 mean for you?

It means that you can review our security practices and controls to verify how your data is processed and stored. It also signals that Sync is enterprise-ready, ensuring your organization can scale with Sync while remaining safe, secure, and compliant in the cloud at all times.

This is great news for businesses operating in highly regulated industries, including government, healthcare, and education. SOC goes a long way towards validating your decision to choose Sync.

Your safe space to get work done

At Sync, we strive to help people do great things securely. So whether you’re sharing big ideas, storing important information, or collaborating on game-changing projects, with SOC 2 compliance, you can be sure that Sync really is your safe space.

Feel free to contact our customer service team to request access to our SOC 2 report.

The post SOC 2 Means Safety for Your Organization first appeared on Sync.com - Get in Sync.

But how do you keep track of all your company’s documents and files when they’re scattered across different computers, devices, and applications? How do you ensure the right people have access to what they need when they need it? And most importantly, how do you keep your data safe, secure, and protected? The threats are real. Data loss or data breaches can shut your business down permanently.

Managing all of this might seem complicated, but it’s simple with Sync. With Sync on your side, your documents and files—companywide—are perfectly protected at all times. Sync makes it easy to:

• Protect and control your company data with real-time backups, document versioning, deleted file recovery, and powerful admin tools.
• Break down silos to ensure you never lose access.
• Maintain complete data privacy compliance in highly regulated industries.
• Use the productivity tools and applications to empower your team’s workflows from anywhere.

It’s not too late to take control of your valuable data with Sync. The success of your business depends on it.

Data governance

Data governance is the process in which organizations manage their data. An effective data governance plan ensures your company files are always available, protected, and remain in the right hands. And good news, Sync makes data governance super simple. Here’s how:

Data availability

As teams work remotely on multiple computers and devices to create and manage documents using a variety of productivity applications, ensuring that your files are easily accessible can be a challenge. However, with centralized access from anywhere, Sync solves your data availability problems instantly. Your company data is always safely available, from any location, computer, device, or app.

Data usability

Keeping your documents organized, searchable, and easy to share is no easy task. Especially when everyone has hundreds of files on their desktop. The centralized Sync folder provides a forcing function that helps your team stay organized because your super clean and accessible file and folder organization system is always synchronized to everyone.

Data consistency

There’s nothing worse than finding out that the document you are working on is not the most up-to-date version. But keeping everyone updated and on the same page doesn’t have to be difficult. With Sync, everyone on the team has access to the latest documents. And activity notifications ensure the team knows when a file is added or updated.

Data integrity

It’s no secret, hardware fails. So how do you keep your data safe for years to come even as you replace hardware and transfer it across platforms? Sync provides long-term, off-site data storage, ensuring your documents and files are always backed up and safe.

Data security

Data leaks, breaches, and unauthorized access are the number one threat to businesses today. Therefore, safeguarding your data from unauthorized access, and complying with data privacy rules and industry regulations is a big responsibility. Sync provides iron-clad security and privacy features that keeps your data safe. From end-to-end encryption to administrative access controls to GDPR, HIPAA, PIPEDA, and SOC-2 compliance, storing your data with Sync gives your business Enterprise-level data governance. No more worrying.

Break down the silos

When different business units, people, or teams use different productivity apps to store their documents and files, data silos emerge. Company data becomes scattered across devices and applications, and there’s no easy way to reconcile who has access to what and where it is. Data silos lead to document proliferation. This is dangerous because proliferations make your data more easily lost or leaked. And you’d have no idea it’s even happening.

Breaking down data silos is an essential part of a data governance strategy. Consolidating to Sync solves this problem. Your data is centralized, and your team can continue to use the productivity apps they know and love. You can finally use Slack or Trello or Microsoft Office 365, and keep your data stored in one spot: Sync.

Control your data as you scale

When implementing your data governance plan, it’s important to think ahead. As your team grows, it will get more and more difficult to keep track of all your data and stay in control. Getting your team in Sync solves this too. Sync provides powerful access permission features and insights to ensure you’re always in control of your data. Manage granular file access on a per user, per folder level, and onboard or offboard users easily any time. With your entire team working in Sync, your workflows won’t stall. You’ll be ahead of the game!

Take control of your data today

Your company data is a valuable asset, and with Sync as part of your data governance strategy, your data will always be protected. Unite your teams while meeting compliance regulations with Sync Pro Teams today!

The post Take Control of Your Data with Sync first appeared on Sync.com - Get in Sync.

Lock down your Sync account with a super strong password and 2FA

You know all those website breaches you hear about on the news? Weak passwords and password re-use are the most common attack vectors hackers use to break-in. Therefore, you need to be sure that the password you use to log into your Sync account is unique, strong, and hasn’t been re-used on other websites. It’s never too late to change your password to something stronger.

To further protect your account, in the event your password is compromised from phishing or a breach on another website, you should enable Two Factor Authentication. This extra layer of security will ask you to sign in twice when you access Sync: with a random code (the second factor) and your password. Only you will have the random code, stopping those bad actors in their tracks.

Using a strong password and enabling 2FA can go a long way to securing your accounts online, and to ensure that no one other than you has access to your files. Threats be gone!

Lock your mobile device

The Sync mobile app makes it easy to access your files in Sync from your phone or tablet. But how do you secure the Sync app when you’ve just handed your phone to your niece to play Candy Crush? This is where the PIN lock feature comes in handy. By setting a passcode to access the Sync app, only you will be able to get in. Not your niece, spouse, or border patrol.

Lock your shared computer

If you share your computer with multiple people, whether at work with co-workers or at home with family members, follow these steps to further secure your Sync account from access:

1. Disable local password reset so your Sync password cannot be changed by anyone else using your computer.
2. Disable single sign-on (SSO) to limit access to your Sync account settings. 

It’s important that when you’re sharing computers or devices, that you protect your data from unauthorized access. To err is human, but it’s easy to protect against human error with Sync.

Encrypt your drives

With Sync your files stored in the cloud are always encrypted. But what about all of the files stored locally on your computer’s internal drive? To protect against local access to your data via the computer hardware itself, you can enable full disk encryption. It’s easy to do, works seamlessly with Sync, and is included as a feature on both Windows and Mac.

Control file access when sharing

Saying that it’s important to maintain control over who has access to the documents and files you share is an understatement.

Link sharing permissions

Have you ever attached a file to an email and then wished you could take it all back? When you share files with Sync Links you can take back anything, any time, like it never happened. Set passwords, expiry dates, limit the number of downloads, and in a worst-case scenario, simply revoke access. Never lose control over your files again.

Shared folder permissions

Speaking of taking things back…Team Shared Folders are a great way to give people access to collaborate on your documents and files, but what happens when someone in the group no longer needs access? This is where a feature called remote wipe can help. With remote wipe you can revoke access and delete the files you shared, instantaneously with a single click. Staying in control is easy.

Monitor account activity

With cyber attackers lurking in the shadows and phishers trying to gain access to your account, how do you keep tabs on their whereabouts to get the upper hand? By checking your Events Tab to keep a watchful eye on your Sync account. From log in attempts to file deletions, you have a chronological audit log of all account and file activity available at your fingertips, ensuring that you can verify that you haven’t been breached.

Manage devices

Far too often, devices get lost, and unfortunately, many times that means stolen. So what do you do when that happens? Disable them, of course. If you ever lose a device or suspect that your computer’s been compromised, you can disable Sync on the device, so whomever has found your device cannot access your Sync account.

Worry less

Protecting yourself from the myriad of malicious threats and security risks, whether they’re intentional or accidental, doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming. By following these steps you’ll be well on your way to reducing the risks to zero. For even more tips on how to keep your Sync account safe follow these extra steps, and maximize your peace of mind knowing that your Sync account is completely safe and secure.

The post Protection Perfection: Keep Your Sync Account Extra Secure first appeared on Sync.com - Get in Sync.

If an insidious hacker steals your log in info (from a breach on another website, phishing, key logging, peeking over your shoulder, etc…) or simply guesses it, that could be a big problem for you. Whether your password is military-grade strong, or one of the disappointing ones in the 2020 list of most common passwords (come on, 123456? Really?), it’s important that you enable Two-Factor Authentication to protect yourself.

How does 2FA work?

Simply put, 2FA asks you to sign in twice when you try to access the Sync Web Panel or when you install Sync onto a new computer or mobile device. This is to ensure you are you, because only you will have the second factor.

A second factor is a random code that only you have access to because it’s linked to either your email address or your mobile device. When you sign in, you’ll need to enter both your password and the second factor. 2FA is your best defence when it comes to protecting your account. It doesn’t matter if you’re storing pictures of your cat or collaborating on top-secret confidential documents, completing this extra step is very important to keep your Sync files safe, especially if you know your password isn’t as strong as it could be.

You can enable 2FA on your Sync account through your email or through a mobile authenticator app. Don’t forget to save the 2FA backup codes you get when you set it up. They can be used once each if you don’t have access to your email or mobile device.

Better safe than sorry

It’s estimated that around the world, over 36 billion records were breached in 2020, and with more people working from home and utilizing technology, this scary number could increase in 2021. With Sync, your password is never transmitted or stored, and your files are always encrypted and protected from unauthorized access. And with features such as 2FA, you have absolute control over your account security. Because wouldn’t you rather feel completely secure? 2FA is only one of the many ways you can make your Sync account (and all your other online accounts!) more secure.

Reach your full Sync potential

We’re constantly improving and adding new features to make Sync as easy to use and as synchronized as possible. Make sure you’re updating your desktop and mobile apps so things are running smoothly, and you can always upgrade your Sync account to unlock more exciting features. We have a plan that’s perfect for you!

The post Better Safe Than Sorry With Two-Factor Authentication first appeared on Sync.com - Get in Sync.

Tech giants reap profits by the billions – converting your data into a commodity for advertisers. Hackers reap profits by the billions – holding your data for ransom. And governments all over the world continue the march towards complete totalitarian control over anything and everything related to your data.

Here at Sync we believe that your privacy is worth protecting and that technology should keep you safe:

• We choose privacy over profit
• We collect as little data about you as possible
• We do not sell your data (or aggregate data) to other companies
• We restrict employee access to your data
• We cannot access your documents and files stored on our servers
• We provide an open and transparent privacy policy

Simply put, we take your privacy seriously. It drives everything we do today.

Some companies want you to believe that they need access to your data to build a better service. Don’t believe it – productivity in the cloud doesn’t have to come at the expense of your security or privacy. Governments want you to believe that backdoor access will help keep you safe. They’re wrong – backdoors weaken security.

And while we may be past the point where tech companies can regulate themselves, there does seem to be a positive shift towards awareness. At least one tech giant has taken a stand, opposing government overreach and lashing out at companies that monetize user data. The EU has taken steps to help consumers better understand what they’re signing up for. And more and more app developers are building end-to-end encryption into their products and services, in an effort to provide better privacy protection.

Your privacy matters. It’s what we’ve been saying since day one.

The post Your Privacy Matters first appeared on Sync.com - Get in Sync.

We are fully committed to providing better privacy protection in the cloud, including GDPR compliance. Privacy by default is the reason why we built Sync. Your data is always encrypted in the cloud, and in terms of your file data, only you have access (we don’t). Protecting your security and privacy in the cloud is what we’re all about.

To formalize this we’ve updated our Privacy Policy to account for the GDPR, added a new GDPR Privacy Policy for EU users, and a GDPR Data Processing Addendum (DPA) for EU businesses and organizations using Sync.

We’ve also added cookie notifications to our website, and configurable email preferences to your Account Settings, giving you granular control over which types of emails you’d like to receive.

If you have any questions please let us know. We’d be happy to help.

The post GDPR Compliance Update first appeared on Sync.com - Get in Sync.

In terms of Sync, exposure to these vulnerabilities is minimal, because all data stored with Sync is protected with end-to-end encryption. Furthermore, our engineering team has taken and will continue to take precautions to keep your data safe, including patching all servers and applying security fixes as they become available. All customer data remains unaffected.

Please make sure you update your own operating systems (Windows, macOS) and web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE/Edge, Safari) with the latest security patches to mitigate the impact that these bugs may have on your local systems.

Also, feel free to contact our support team if you have any questions.

Your data is safe with Sync.

The post Update on Meltdown and Spectre first appeared on Sync.com - Get in Sync.

If the term is new to you, net neutrality is the principle that all online traffic be treated equally, regardless of content, user or website. In short, it’s the way the internet has always been – free and open to everyone; a level playing field that breeds innovation.

When you go online, you aren’t restricted to certain websites. You’re free to shop at any store, post a picture to social media, read comments in your favorite forum or make dinner reservations at the local restaurant down the street. Every site, big or small, is available to you. This is net neutrality.

But up until 2 years ago, there was no legislation in place to protect this free and open internet.

Your liberties at risk 

In 2015, millions of people came together and succeeded in securing strong net neutrality rules from the FCC. These rules ensure internet service providers (like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon) can’t restrict your access to competitor’s websites or prioritize content from companies that can afford to pay them a premium for better service.

But new legislators are attempting to repeal the rules set in place in 2015; less government control cited as the chief reason for the move.

Our stance 

At Sync, we believe in and support net neutrality. In fact, the neutrality of the internet is a main reason why we and so many other startups have been able to succeed.

The internet in its current form (neutral) gives us all a voice, a platform. And we each have the ability to use our voices and platforms the way we see fit… Whether that means starting our own businesses, blogging to raise awareness for important causes or just sharing another cat video.

We don’t want to see our liberties taken away and believe the future of the internet depends on strong net neutrality laws.

How you can help

If you believe in the neutrality of the internet as well, we encourage you to do something about it! There are numerous ways to make a difference such as contacting members of congress, signing petition forms and educating your friends and family on the issue.

For more information on the importance of net neutrality and how you can support the cause, visit – https://www.battleforthenet.com.

The post Net Neutrality and the Future of the Internet first appeared on Sync.com - Get in Sync.

Failure to comply with this new regulation by the May 25th, 2018 enforcement date could result in hefty fines. It’s important to note that even if your company is based outside the EU, the GDPR may still apply… If your company does any kind of business with other companies or customers residing in the EU, you’re obligated to comply or risk facing the penalties.

Here’s what you need to know…

Key points in the GDPR

1. Scope: The new GDPR applies to any and all companies processing the personal data of EU residents. The location of the company doing the processing is irrelevant. Personal data is defined as anything that can identify an individual, be it directly or indirectly. Pictures, Facebook posts and personal addresses, for example, as well as business material like resumes, documents, files and contracts are included.

2. Consent: When attempting to obtain consent, a business is strictly forbidden to make requests in long, easily misunderstood legalese. Rather, a clear and easily assessable form using plain language must be used. Should your business need to use a customer’s data in a specific way, consent must be asked for and given in clear, explicit terms.

3. The Right To Be Forgotten: Also known as the Right To Erasure, the Right To Be Forgotten is another key point in the new GDPR and enables a person to have their personal data expunged by a data controller due to irrelevance or a withdrawal of consent. As a business owner, your company needs to be ready and willing to fulfill such requests.

4. Breach Notification: In the event of a data breach, notifications to the effected individuals are mandatory within 72 hours of first becoming aware. The one stipulation to this is that the data breached must be likely to “result in a risk for the rights and freedoms of individuals” as detailed in Article 33 of the GDPR regulation. Meaning notification is only required if the data breached hasn’t been anonymized.

5. Privacy By Design: Though the concept of privacy by design is nothing new, the legal requirement of it is. The GDPR mandates that all systems and applications be built from the ground up with data protection in mind, rather than simply “adding it in” at a later date. Article 23 of the GDPR takes this concept even further by stating that data controllers must hold and process only the vital information needed to carry out their duties and access to such data should be limited to necessary personnel only.

6. The Right To Information: As a business complying with the new GDPR, you are required to inform your clients and customers how and why their data is being processed. Ideally, this will be handled at the beginning of your relationship with each individual (when asking for consent), but your customers have the right to stay informed beyond this point as well. Be ready to supply the desired information in an understandable and concise way and always free of charge.

7. Data Portability: Every data subject (customer or client) has the right to receive their personal data from a data controller and transfer it to another provider should they so choose. According to the GDPR, your business must be capable of and willing to accomodate such a request.

What this means for Sync customers

If you’re a Sync customer, know that our team is fully committed to protecting your data privacy in the cloud, and we’re committed to meeting the provisions outlined in the new GDPR.

Currently, Canada’s data privacy laws are compatible with the EU data privacy framework, as determined by the European Commission, and data can flow freely between Canada and the EU without issue. This means that, as a businesses operating in the EU or UK, you can safely use Sync today.

Additionally, due to Sync’s commitment to your privacy, our platform already conforms with many GDPR provisions such as privacy by design, the right to information, data portability, and the right to be forgotten. And we will continue to build on our commitment to ensure full GDPR compliance in advance of the May, 25th 2018 enforcement date.

The GDPR may seem complicated and overwhelming, but by partnering with Sync, you’re ensuring for your business the easiest route to full compliance. Feel free to contact our knowledgable team for any remaining questions or concerns.

We’re happy to help!

The post The GDPR: What it is and What it Means for Your Business first appeared on Sync.com - Get in Sync.