Owning cloud servers are moving more and more into focus. Especially in Europe, with regard to the Data Protection Regulation, which came into force in May 2018, it is not a bad idea to use self-hosted solutions for cloud servers as well. If in doubt, this saves a lot of paperwork and can be considered relatively safe. But it is precisely the safety that still causes doubt on the other side. After all, you also want to know your data is protected, without immediately becoming an IT security expert. Nextcloud therefore offers a solution that should attract a lot of interest.

Hosting cloud services yourself is a good idea if you know it. At least that’s how it has been so far. If you want to store your data securely in the cloud, you must ensure that no one can access it without authorization. At this step many users were overwhelmed. Too much depends on it and the various tools that should actually provide support are too complicated to use. Nextcloud, the provider of a cloud hosting solution, has always attached great importance to ease-of-use and security, while providing last year a new extension with end-to-end encryption.

With the extension, it is possible to protect selected folders and files with end-to-end encryption – and quite simply, without requiring special knowledge about encryption. Of course, there is also a server and client software for this extension. The keys are issued via server-side signed certificates and it is also possible to generate certificates via their own hardware security modules and offline keys are also possible.

If you don’t want to put your data in someone else’s hands or if you want to host them in Europe, then this solution is certainly on the right path.