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August 26, 2008
File Transfer Protocol
Kudos to Wayne Saunders for writing a real nice overview of FTP, including pointing out some very important positives and negatives of this aging but still very useful, relevant and commonly-used technology.
Wayne hits the nail on the head with his concern for security over basic FTP connections. "Some of the negatives about FTP is that it isn't very secure."
You see, FTP was created years ago before security was a real issue and as such, it lacks any sort of built in encryption that would protect files and data as they are moving from computer to computer. This hold true regardless of whether the files being transferred are personal photos, webpages, music or top-secret financial or other confidential business documents.
So, the big question is.... Are there any secure and encrypted alternatives to basic FTP? Well, Wayne actually answers this question for us also: "To minimise some of these problems with security you have to use SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) or FTPS (FTP over SSL) which add on more security and encryption when transferring files".
I will pick on one comment that Wayne wrote though: "Passwords and such are sent in clear text, so people looking in could find out passwords easily".
While this is generally a true statement, there is a client-server solution that combats this security problem. Basic FTP connections made between WS_FTP Server and the WS_FTP Professional secure file transfer client do protect usernames/passwords with encryption and they are never sent in the clear. Nice little homecourt advantage for the WS_FTP software....
Posted by Hugh Garber at August 26, 2008 07:58 AM digg this add to del.icio.us add to My Web Furl this page
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