Any IT Security prople here?

[sweptalong]

I've been offered a job with a local authority employer. They have sent several forms to fill in, such as bank details, declaration of convictions (none in my case, but that's not relevant), next of kin, hmrc checklist, etc), health info, and suggested I fill them in and return them by email. From my perspective, email is not fully secure, and I also don't want the docs sitting in someone's mailbox in perpetuity, so I put them in my Google Drive and shared the link instead (so I could delete them once they had been downloaded and processed). Unfortunately my contact told me their IT department didn't allow them to access Google Drive.

Does anyone know why that might be?

And is the same rule likely to apply to OneDrive or DropBox?

I could ask them the second question, but I just want an idea of the context first (and, of course, by now they may have left for the day).

Probably to avoid data exfiltration via employees uploading sensitive documents to their personal cloud storage accounts.

We aren't allowed to open anything like that at work either, our security system prevents it. We need documents sent to us in .pdf format or as a Word or Excel file.

You can send them as a zipped, encrypted file and give the password over the phone if you are concerned.

Online storage is a massive no access for lots of companies(well any company with a decent data security policy). Default rules in most endpoint protection would be blocking it. The company likely also has a policy that once they've dealt with your personal data they should destroy it in an appropriate manner.

Can always ask them if they have a portal to upload to sensitive documents

Ask them what their data retention policy is. HR will probably have a quite strict policy of deleting personal data once it's been uploaded

My workplace actively blocks Google Drive, Dropbox etc and only allow access to OneDrive if it's part of the company Microsoft account so that it can be controlled and locked down

This

I was looking into that. I use a Windows PC and the files are .doc and .pdf. I know how to zip them, but there is no option to encrypt in Windows. Googling suggests it needs a third party tool.

I think Word documents are like excel and so can be password protected - google is your friend

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-encrypt-a-file-1131805c-47b8-2e3e-a705-807e13c10da7#:~:text=Right%2Dclick%20(or%20press%20and,Apply%2C%20and%20then%20select%20OK.

You can also download WinRar or 7Zip for free.

Thanks. This looks perfect, but the encrypt option is greyed out for me. Maybe because I don't have an MS365 subscription.

I'm a little wary of entrusting my files to free third party tools, but I'll look into them.

Or send the password in a separate email.