People,
All of my QNAP NAS are connected to the network and can have an outbound Internet connection.
Does signing in to the myQNAPCloud login with QNAP ID expose the device to the internet publicly?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
No. It does not. The only way to expose your NAS to the internet is to enable it in your router/firewall either through UPNP or by manual port forwarding.
Accessing your NAS vis the myQNAPCloud login uses a connection through QNAP’s web portal. The biggest drawback is speed. Their only server for this is in Tawain and at least from the US, it’s about 2MB/s up and down.
1 Like
Putting your trust in a 3rd party to store and guard your access credentials does open a window. This is no different than trusting other companies with access to your personal information. Being plugged in to the internet opens windows to all sorts of potential scenarios. This is life and it is all about mitigation.
The question in, do you NEED to use the QNAP services?
Can you run a VPN (on your router) instead and reduce (not eliminate) the risk?
1 Like
The QNAP services are kinda there when you create a QNAP ID and register your device anyhow. So unless you explicitly stop using them you are using them!
The biggest advantage I see in using the myQNAPCloud service is the ability to share files/folders with others from your NAS w/o exposing it to the internet. This was one of the features of why I fell in love with QNAP. I can send someone a link and they can access the file I want to share with them without me exposing my NAS. Brilliant!
Now, the biggest disadvantage to that like I say is that it is somewhat slow since the servers are only in Taiwan.
I had opened up some ports to share my NAS on the internet (not the default ports) but it made me nervous and once I read about how you should never do it, I took that down. Now if I need to share with someone via a faster method, you can share files from the myQNAPCloud storage space. That doesn’t go through Taiwan as with the storage space you select where the server is located.
1 Like
But, YOU ARE exposing it to the internet, otherwise external user would NOT be able to access the files. It is simply an alternative way to expose the files. If QNAP is hacked or vulnerable, then your credentials or data could also be vulnerable. Again, it is all about mitigating risk. I have no QNAP service access and if my credentials are exposed, it causes no risk to my data, just my QNAP registration, but I maintain physical and virtual access.
This is mandatory for MY data, but everyone needs to know and accept the risk involved of being on the internet.
If this risk is acceptable to YOU, then great! That is why these service are offered, to fulfil the need of users you accept the risk with their data. Maybe you/they have offline storage backups and other protections as well as non-sensitive data. It would work well for those scenarios.
2 Likes
No you are not! The QNAP server is acting as a proxy. The share file is transferred through the QNAP server. No one bas direct access to your files or NAS. And it’s only what you choose to share.
My NAS credentials are never exposed through the smart share feature.
1 Like
What dosborne is saying…what if QNAP servers are compromised? All of the sudden attackers could have access to all QNAPcloudLink NAS servers.
So far no cases of that ever happening have surfaced…but never say never.
4 Likes