Singapore launches free private cloud software for security

A Singapore-based technology start-up is launching a free private cloud software with enhanced security features, the firm said on Saturday.

Speaking at a salon of information technology professionals and entrepreneurs, Creative Fountain co-founder Wang Hualei said the software will always be free to individual users but the firm may charge fees in the future on premium corporate users who request customized services.

"Private cloud or local cloud is still largely a blue ocean in the huge market for cloud services," he said.

The company said its software, known as LongCube, backs up users' files in their computer and other electronic products to their own portable hard disk.

The backup data in the external hard disk will be encrypted using private keys set by the users. The service can be called a " local cloud," Wang said.

Wang, an industry veteran, said it is safer to have a local backup of the data in the computer, compared with backing them up to the public cloud offered by the industry giants.

The security issue with cloud services recently made headlines due to a leak of private photos of celebrities.

Quite a number of big names of the industry have encountered security challenges in the past, too.

Wang said the security lapses in the recent scandal of celebrity photos leaked might be explained by the phone location service which allows the phone to be identified by repeatedly confirming the pin, which leaves a weakness that might be exploited to hack into the cloud service account by repeatedly trying different pins without the account being locked.

Normally a cloud service account, like many other accounts, is often locked once incorrect passwords are tried for certain number of times.

Wang said it is important to build good security habits in an age of cloud computing and smart home.

"Many of these smart home products are connected to the Internet so that they can be smart. This means data exchanges between the home computers and the wider Internet, thereby creating the weaknesses that might be exploited to hack into our home network or individual computer system," he said.

Some of the weaknesses should be avoided by building good habits, like setting passwords that are not so simple as to be just related to a birthday or telephone number.

"My suggestion is that you do not put your very private stuff on 'cloud.' It might go anywhere," he said.