What this review is for
Cloud file-sharing platforms make it easy to collaborate with employees, clients, contractors, and vendors. They also make it easy for access to persist after a project ends, for an external link to be forwarded, or for a former user to remain a member of a group. The purpose of this review is not to prove that a cloud service is secure. It is to identify obvious permission problems that a small office can correct or escalate.
Use the review for the business’s primary file-sharing service, document-management platform, or collaboration workspace. If the provider has multiple environments, begin with the one containing client, patient, financial, payroll, legal, or operationally critical information.
Minute 0–5: Define the review boundary
Write down:
- The cloud service being reviewed.
- The administrator or owner performing the review.
- The date and time.
- The data repositories included.
- The business owner who can approve access changes.
Do not make changes before recording the starting condition. A short before-and-after record helps explain what was reviewed and prevents uncertainty later.
Minute 5–10: Review users and groups
Export or inspect the current user and group list. Mark each account:
- Current employee.
- Former employee.
- Contractor or temporary worker.
- Vendor or partner.
- Shared, generic, or service account.
- Unknown or unverified identity.
For every former or unknown user, record whether access is still active. Do not simply delete an account if the organization may need its files, audit history, or legal hold. Instead, coordinate with the administrator to suspend access, transfer ownership, preserve required information, and document the decision.
Pay special attention to groups. A user may appear to have no direct access while receiving access through a team, department, project, or external-collaboration group.
Minute 10–15: Review sharing settings
Select the most sensitive folders and inspect how access is granted. Record whether each folder is shared with:
- Named internal users.
- Internal groups.
- Specific external users.
- Anyone with a link.
- Anyone in the organization.
- A vendor or partner tenant.
“Anyone with the link” is not automatically a security failure, but it is a high-priority condition to verify. Ask what information the link exposes, whether the link has an expiration date, whether download is necessary, and whether the recipient’s identity is known. Replace broad links with named recipients when practical.
Check whether users can reshare files. If a project requires external collaboration, define who may invite others and who approves that decision.
Minute 15–20: Review administrator and recovery access
Identify accounts that can change sharing policies, add users, create applications, or recover access. Confirm:
- Administrator accounts are assigned to named individuals.
- Multifactor authentication is enabled for administrators.
- Shared administrator credentials are not being used as a normal practice.
- At least one authorized backup administrator exists.
- Recovery methods are current and controlled.
- The organization knows how to reach the provider during an outage or suspected compromise.
If the platform supports audit logs, verify that administrators can review sign-ins, sharing changes, deletions, and unusual downloads. Record the log-retention period if it is known. Do not assume that a provider’s default retention is sufficient for the business’s legal, contractual, or investigative needs.
Minute 20–25: Record actions and exceptions
Use this action table:
- Finding: What was observed?
- Risk: What could happen if it remains?
- Owner: Who will correct or approve it?
- Due date: When will the action be completed?
- Evidence: What will show that it is finished?
Examples:
- Former contractor remains in a project group; office manager will remove access after confirming file ownership; evidence will be a group-membership export dated after removal.
- External link exposes a client folder; project lead will replace it with named access; evidence will be the revised share setting and recipient list.
- Administrator recovery phone belongs to a former employee; IT provider will update recovery details; evidence will be a provider-generated confirmation.
What is confirmed—and what is uncertain
Confirmed: Access control, user inventories, software inventories, and monitoring are recognized cybersecurity outcomes in NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework. NIST also emphasizes that small organizations should tailor their risk-management approach to their own mission, resources, and requirements.
Uncertain: The exact names and controls differ across Microsoft, Google, Dropbox, file-management, legal-document, and industry-specific platforms. A review cannot determine whether a provider’s entire security architecture is adequate. It also cannot replace contract review, data-classification work, or an investigation into suspected unauthorized access.
Stop conditions
Pause and escalate instead of making routine changes if:
- A suspicious administrator login is visible.
- A large or unusual download occurred.
- A user reports that files were encrypted, deleted, or renamed unexpectedly.
- An external party may have accessed regulated or confidential data.
- The organization cannot identify who owns a critical repository.
- The review would destroy evidence needed for an investigation.
In those situations, contact the IT provider, incident-response adviser, insurer, and counsel as appropriate. Preserve logs and avoid communicating unverified conclusions.
Save the result
Retain the completed checklist with the date, reviewer, scope, findings, approvals, and follow-up evidence. Repeat the review after major staffing changes, new external collaborations, platform migrations, or suspected account compromise. The value is not the 25-minute duration; it is the repeatable record of who can reach important files and why.