The Security Problem with FTP. If you are asking why use secure File Transfer Protocol (FTP), then you are probably familiar with FTP file transfer. People have used FTP since the ’80s to transfer files over the internet between host servers and client computers. The problem with FTP is that it does not protect your data during transmission. This includes your user ID and password. This means that that a hacker could easily get a copy of the files that you transmit, and, more importantly, the hacker can gain assess to the FTP server using a stolen user ID and password from your FTP session.
Why Use Secure FTP to Transfer Files?
The primary reason to use a secure communication protocol is to secure the data being transferred as well as the user ID and password being used to upload or download the data from a server. Secure FTP protocols encrypt both the commands that are used to transfer the data as well as the data being transferred.
Two Different Secure FTP Protocols.
There are two different types of secure FTP. From a security perspective they both provide adequate protection. The server-side of the communications transfer will dictate which one to use based on specific technical requirements to include type of computer host, firewalls, application requirements and network requirements.
SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) is based on the Secure Shell protocol (SSH). SSH Client and Server applications provide both command-line SFTP tools and a graphical user interface for Windows users.
FTPS (FTP-SSL) SFTP implements the actual FTP protocol through a separately created secure tunnel using Transport Layer Security (TLS) / Secure Socket Layer (SSL). Here all the commands and logons are secure with TLS/SSL, and the data may or may not be encrypted by FTPS. The user has a choice of encrypting the data prior to data transfer or during data transfer (i.e. there is no need to encrypt a file during data transfer if it is already encrypted).
For more information on why to use secure FTP to transfer files, see Vamsi Krishna posting, Overview of SFTP, FTPS, SCP and FTP .
