Risks of Free File Sharing Applications: Protecting Your Data is a Priority

Recent Warnings: Recent warnings indicate that most free file-sharing applications expose users to serious security risks, as these applications may host files infected with viruses or malware, increasing the chance of downloading or distributing harmful content unknowingly to the user, and threatening personal and professional data security.

Lack of Virus Scanning: A Serious Security Vulnerability

Deep Analyses: Deep analyses of six popular file-sharing applications revealed that most of them do not scan uploaded files for viruses or malware. This security vulnerability becomes critically important when it is known that 92% of malware is delivered via email or by uploading files to external corporate systems. In the first half of 2023 alone, 2.8 billion malware attacks occurred, underscoring the scale of the threat.

Source: You can find more details via Akamai.

For example, Box and WeTransfer offer virus scanning as part of their paid plans only, while Dropbox and iCloud perform no scanning at all. iCloud relies on Apple device security to scan for malware, a feature that is useless when run on Windows devices.

This emphasizes that reputation does not always guarantee security, especially for applications serving billions of active users. Experts believe that some of the largest companies operating these services possess the necessary technological capabilities but systematically neglect security features because they do not generate direct revenue. The rule here is simple: if you don't pay for a service, you are often the product.

User Responsibility and Phishing Risks

Informed Decisions: Users must make informed decisions about the level of risk they are willing to take with their data. Ultimately, any upload or download represents a potential entry point that can compromise security, especially when using the free versions of these services.

Phishing Risks: The risks of phishing attacks (Phishing) through file sharing are significantly increasing, with these attacks seeing a 350% year-on-year increase according to reports issued in August 2024. In 2023, 71% of companies reported experiencing at least one successful phishing attack, while 32% of them suffered data or intellectual property loss as a result.

Sources: You can visit Abnormal AI and Zight for more information.

Differences Between Free and Paid Services

Paid Protection: While using Virtual Private Network (VPN) equipped with antivirus software significantly reduces the risks of malware or potential leaks of private information, it's notable that these applications seek to address these security issues through their paid plans, offering much better protection.

Examples of Paid Services: The enhanced Box service offers antivirus and ransomware scanning, WeTransfer provides antivirus scanning, while Dropbox offers ransomware protection.

Perhaps most interestingly, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive are the only platforms that perform antivirus scanning when uploading or downloading files for free users, although Google restricts virus scanning for files smaller than 100 MB.

New Laws and Privacy Challenges

Online Safety Act: These findings coincide with the UK communications regulator (Ofcom)'s intention to redouble file monitoring efforts in 2026 as part of the expansion of the Online Safety Act.

This law, which is already in effect in 2025, requires file-sharing companies and other services that rely on user interaction to take greater responsibility for files shared on their platforms in an attempt to stop the exchange of illegal content, such as child sexual abuse material.

However, experts warn that these comprehensive scanning requirements could create enormous risks to privacy, by allowing third parties, including companies and governments, to access users' entire digital lives. This becomes a particularly serious privacy issue when it extends to everyone's personal files, especially for services like Dropbox or cloud backup platforms widely used to store personal files.

Risks of Comprehensive Scanning and False Positives

Scanning System Errors: Scanning systems often make mistakes. James Baker of the Open Rights Group stated that "mass scanning of all files shared between people would be an unprecedented expansion of mass surveillance powers, leading to many false positives, and the classification of innocent people's content."

Financial Statistics: It is worth noting that 62% of financially motivated incidents involved ransomware or extortion, with an average loss of $46,000 per breach, according to statistics released in January 2025.

Source: For more details, you can visit University of San Diego.

Personal Protection and Privacy: Regardless of regulations, the undeniable truth remains that using your own antivirus software increases protection on your device. The day we begin to trust the integrity of our files on cloud servers may be the day we lose control over our privacy.