CIFS vs. SMB: What’s the Difference and Which Is More Secure?

**Executive summary:** The report outlines that CIFS/SMBv1 are deprecated and pose significant security risks—lacking encryption and message integrity—and have been exploited by high-profile ransomware outbreaks; it recommends inventorying protocol usage, disabling SMBv1, enforcing SMB 3.x encryption and signing, restricting network access, monitoring for legacy protocol usage, and continuous third-party risk monitoring to reduce exposure.