Cryptomator Blog

Vulnerability in iOS Version 2.0.0–2.0.3 (Please update to 2.0.4)

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We always claimed that if there once were a security issue with Cryptomator, we’d be unable to hide it. Now it happened: A user reported an issue in our iOS app that we consider severe.

While such issues can happen in any type of project (as recently demonstrated by infamous bugs in log4j and Exchange), users of open-source software can at least rely on known vulnerabilities not being kept secret for marketing purposes.

In this spirit, we want to share with you all the details of this vulnerability.

What happened?

When decrypting files for the iOS Files app, the cleartext file needs to be physically stored on the file system and a path leading to this file is handed over to the Files app.

If iCloud Backup is enabled on this device, the cleartext file is included in the backup, effectively leaking it to Apple.

What files are affected?

Only files that you actually opened from within the Files app have been decrypted. All remaining vault contents are unaffected.

Furthermore, the device needs to have made an iCloud Backup while a vulnerable version has been in use (2.0.0 released 2021-12-21, fixed in 2.0.4 released 2021-12-26).

If iCloud Backup is disabled, no decrypted files left your device.

Can leaked files be deleted from existing backups?

While we don’t know how reliably Apple erases data, you can in fact exclude individual apps from iCloud Backup and remove existing backups.

When was the vulnerability reported?

The issue was reported by a community member on 2021-12-25 at 13:15h UTC.

When was the vulnerability fixed?

We committed a fix two hours later at 15:28h UTC and submitted the app to Apple immediately. Apple released the fixed version 2.0.4 on the next day.

Are vaults located on iCloud still encrypted?

Yes, the vaults themselves are still fully protected, regardless of which cloud storage is being used.

Why is there decrypted data in the first place?

At some point, you need to have cleartext data, otherwise you can’t work with them. Cryptomator is fully integrated into the Files app, which means that it is bound to and limited by the File Provider Extension API. It requires to have readable (cleartext) data readily available. Keep in mind that Cryptomator’s target is to ensure privacy in the cloud and not on the device itself.

Are there any other plans regarding the local cache?

We are currently investigating if we can shorten the lifetime of decrypted data. As mentioned before, mechanisms that affect the File Provider Extension are out of our hands. But for example, clearing the cache after the vault has been locked in combination with auto-lock can certainly be helpful if you’d like to tighten the longevity of decrypted data.

How does the development team make sure to avoid issues?

While claiming to write bug-free software would be a blatant lie, we can promise to do our best to avoid such vulnerabilities.

But all the best practices, automated code analysis, highest test coverage and consulting external experts doesn’t help to rule out all possibilities, especially when caused by interaction with a third-party tool.

The rewritten iOS app has been tested by more than 2,300 beta testers over a period of half a year. After all, it was just very bad luck that this issue has not been discovered during this beta.

Cryptomator 2.0 for iOS Release

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

We are happy to announce that Cryptomator 2.0 for iOS is now available in the App Store! 🎉 We’d like to express our gratitude to our over 2,300 TestFlight users for testing the app over the last 6 months. ❤️

Last year in April, we started to rebuild our iOS app from scratch. That’s why we decided to develop Cryptomator 2.0 in Swift. This will make it easier for us to maintain the app in the future.

Of course, the new app also comes with some new features. With Cryptomator 2.0, you get an app that is completely integrated into Apple’s own Files app. This means that your vaults are directly accessible from there. For example, you can now save and edit a Word document directly in an encrypted vault via the Files app. In addition, features like thumbnails, grid view, swiping through images, and drag & drop are possible with the new app.

Transparency is also very important to us with Cryptomator 2.0. Therefore, the entire Cryptomator family, including the new app, remains fully open source. You can check out the repository on GitHub here.

But we didn’t stop there. For the first time, the new app is available as a “freemium” app. This means that in the free version, you can access your vaults in “read-only” mode. If you only need quick access to your vaults on the go, which were created with the Desktop application, then this is the perfect “companion” app. If you don’t want to miss out on write access to your vaults, you can unlock the full version via a one-time purchase for $11.99 after a 30-day trial.

As promised, users of our old Cryptomator app can switch to the new app for free. We have tried to make the upgrade as easy as possible for you. All you have to do is make sure that the previous app is up to date when you start the new app so that you can select the upgrade option. To make the transition easier for you, the previous app will be available in the App Store for a short transition period.

At this point, we would like to thank you once again for your support, without which the project would not have been possible. 😊

We are already looking forward to your feedback! 🤖

Computer Security Day

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Anti-virus software and ad blockers are common tools to increase your data security on your device. To mark today’s Computer Security Day, here are five more tips on how to improve your computer security.

1. Check before click

Most people get them every day; so-called phishing mails. Mostly disguised as sinfully cheap offers from well-known companies, they want to entice the user to click on a link given in the mail. Via this link, the scammers are able to grab sensitive data such as passwords or install malware.

In the meantime, some mail providers are already filtering out most of these messages. However, if you are not sure whether an email is legitimate, it is better not to click on it in the first place.

2. Don’t recycle your passwords

Remembering one or two passwords is not a problem for most people. Having one for every account is far too many to remember.

In such cases, the “solution” seems quite obvious: simply use the same password several times so that you don’t have to click on “Forgot your password?”. However, this may become really dangerous if the universal password is stolen. Especially if sensitive data, such as the PayPal account, is protected with them.

A password manager can provide a remedy, as it generates and saves all passwords for you.

3. Attention with Wi-Fi

They can be extremely practical. We’re talking about public Wi-Fi networks: quickly answer an email on the train or do your work from the café around the corner.

However, these public networks are usually not encrypted. This means that anyone could theoretically read the data stream between their own device and the network and, in the worst case, even damage the device.

It is therefore advisable to have a VPN set up when using public networks.

4. Protect your browser

Browsers are the gateway to the Internet, so it is all the more important to protect them properly. A first step towards more security while surfing is to always keep the application up to date. This way, security gaps can be constantly closed.

In addition, plug-ins to protect against phishing and malware can increase the security of your browser. These can be activated relatively easy with most providers.

5. Secure on the go in the cloud

Uploading your own data to the cloud can be very handy, for example, if you want to quickly share pictures or expand your own storage space. But when the data is uploaded to the cloud “just like that”, it is not safe from strangers' eyes. The reason is quite simple; the data is unprotected in the cloud; once someone has gained access, they can simply access all the data without any obstacles. This can be easily avoided; Cryptomator puts your data in the cloud in a secure safe and thus protects it from foreign eyes.

You can read how this works in our article on encrypting Dropbox.

You want to encrypt your cloud with Cryptomator? Download here.

Vault Format 8

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Hello Community!

We’d like to give you some information about an important part of the upcoming 1.6.0 release: The new vault format in version 8.

Yes, a new vault format. The ones who remember the last upgrade might start to groan, because last time the migration process from vault format 6 to 7 was in some cases not without hiccups. But don’t worry, this time the changes are significantly less invasive!

This article will give motivation for designing the new format, what the changes are in detail, and sketches how the migration process looks like, such that you know what you are up to.

The Motivation

The storage location of the masterkey is a topic, which in the early days of Cryptomator already raised a lot of questions and led to several feature requests. (e.g., look at the number of clicks in https://community.cryptomator.org/t/why-is-the-masterkey-stored-in-the-cloud/)

So, what is all the fuss about? The masterkey of a vault is stored within the vault structure in a file called masterkey.cryptomator and encrypted with state-of-the-art algorithms. Its location is not a security risk and, additionally, the location ensures that this integral part of a vault is always moved with the vault. Admittedly, calling the file “masterkey” is an arguable decision, but it’s definitely obvious that the file is important.

But this isn’t about the name. By hardwiring where the masterkey is stored, we lose flexibility to load it from somewhere else. (A relating feature request is under the first 100 tickets of Cryptomator!) What if a user has a hardware token which could store it? Or what if a company has a centralized key management with single sign-on and wants to use it with Cryptomator? And even if workarounds for the above questions are found, how to deal with them when the vault structure/format changes? These questions led to the idea of decoupling the masterkey retrieval from the vault structure and eventually into the design of vault format 8.

The Changes

With vault format 8, we introduce a new file named vault.cryptomator for every vault located in the vault root. This is the vault configuration file. Together with the data directory named d, they form the required minimum for a valid vault.

The vault config file is a JWT containing the basic information about the vault (like a unique identifier) and especially where to load the masterkey from. All other parameters that are required to derive the masterkey are not stored in the vault config anymore, which decouples the key derivation from the vault format itself and opens the door to get the masterkey from other sources than just the masterkey.cryptomator file inside the vault. For example, in future releases, you might be able to store the vault masterkey inside a Yubikey or the Microsoft Certification Store. Additionally, with the vault config being a JWT, it is signed by the masterkey itself and ensures that nobody tampered with it.

As noted above, the vault config file can also store additional information. One is the vault-specific threshold of shortening encrypted filenames. Before format 8, this value was set in stone in Cryptomator’s encryption scheme. By specifying it in the vault config, it can be configurable in the future, such that the full capabilities of a vault are also available on more restrictive storage locations.

The encryption scheme, the directory structure, and encrypted files stay the same.

The Migration

What do these changes mean for a migration from vault format 7 to 8? Nearly nothing!

The only file edited is masterkey.cryptomator. Hence, for all “online only” users, it would be sufficient to only download this file. For the migration process itself, first, the vault config file vault.cryptomator will be created and filled with the correct values like the aforementioned unique vault identifier and the filename shortening threshold. Second, the already present masterkey file is updated. And third… that’s already it. 😄 No other files need to be altered.

As you can see, vault format 8 only imposes a small and easy to migrate change, while making way for interesting and exciting new features. With updating to Cryptomator 1.6.0, vaults of a former version need to be migrated and newly created ones will already be in format 8. Keep in mind that the masterkey file is still needed, since it securely contains the actual key to your vault.

We hope that your worries about a vault upgrade are reduced and you are eager to update! If you want to know more about the upcoming 1.6.0 version of Cryptomator, continue reading the article about it.

Cryptomator 1.6.0: What You Need to Know

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Hello Community!

In this blog post, we’d like to give you some news about the upcoming major update of Cryptomator to version 1.6.0. We’ll be highlighting the most significant changes and new features and make sure that you are ready for the update.

Changes and Features

The two most important changes are the usage of a new vault format (version 8) and a long promised integration of the Sanitizer (now called Vault Health Check). For a more complete list, read the release page of Cryptomator.

Auto Lock

A feature already wished in its earliest days will be present: Auto Lock – the automatic locking of a vault. For every vault you can set up an idle timer after which the vault is automatically locked. If any write or read happens during the time span, the timer is reset.

Redesigned Error Dialog

After a lot of indirect feedback from you about the error dialog, we decided to change its design to fit more of your needs. The most obvious and important change is the new error code. It might be as cryptic as the already existing stack trace, but it speeds up the search for solutions or workarounds for your specific problem in our error code database. Along with the error code the dialog also provides links to quickly query the database. And if the error is not yet known, it’ll make it easier for you to report it in a format that helps us understand the problem.

Vault Format 8

The big change behind the scenes is a new vault format. Starting with 1.6.0, it will be used by default and enforced. The new format prepares Cryptomator for future features and corrects inconsistencies in former versions. For more details, check out the more-in-depth article about it.

Vault Health Check

We added an integrated tool to detect and fix structural problems of a vault (e.g., missing directories). Until Cryptomator 1.5.0, this task was done by the so-called Sanitizer. But the tool was hard to maintain and hard to use so that it was abandoned with the goal to integrate similar functionality directly within Cryptomator.

This plan finally bore fruit into a workflow to perform different checks on a vault to detect common problems. The results are shown on the fly and once the check is finished, you can export the results. For 1.6.0, there will be only three checks to execute, but we plan to add more. But keep in mind that the Health Check is not designed as a magical fix-all-tool. If you are encountering problems with a vault, make sure that the vault files are properly synchronized before running this tool. That said, of course, we appreciate feedback about it regarding usability and functionality.

Plugin API

Cryptomator is now able to load plugins from a dedicated plugin directory. In the long run, this allows integrating third party services, e.g. enter password via password manager. The feature is still experimental and might change over time. A first plugin is already available: A KeePassXC integration developed by PureJava. You can download it here.

Update Guide

In general, you should update, because you not only benefit from new features, but also from bug fixes. Still, you might consider to delay the update, because Cryptomator 1.6.0 enforces the new format, i.e. old vaults need to be migrated in order to unlock them, and once a vault is migrated, older desktop versions won’t be able to open it.

Of course, and as always, Cryptomator provides a migration from older formats to version 8. But to perform it, the app needs write access to the vault files (configuration files and encrypted data). Details about the migration can be found in the vault format 8 article. You should wait with the update, if

you cannot update all Cryptomator apps (desktop and mobile)
you don’t have write access to all the vaults you use.

When you decide to update, there is one last issue you need to check beforehand: If you ever manually altered the setting file filenameLengthLimit for a vault in the settings.json file, these modifications will be lost after the update and will be ignored if simply copied back. A guide to migrate in this setting will be published soon.

Update on the Document Provider Development

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Hey Community,

From time to time, we need to adjust our schedule for certain features. We are well aware that the Document Provider is the most-requested feature of the Android app, but despite this fact, we need to temporarily shift our attention to other tasks within this project. This blog post you’re reading right now is to keep you, our community, updated and inform you that we are unable to stick to our original plan. Unfortunately, this means that any further development of the Document Provider feature needs to be postponed to the end of this year.

The Document Provider Feature

As users of our Android app, you know how cumbersome sometimes the work with it is: You open your favourite notes app to quickly jot something down, then notice that you cannot open your to-do list from the app because you store it encrypted with Cryptomator. So you sigh, open the Cryptomator app, unlock your vault, navigate to the to-do list file and open it with the aforementioned notes app. Definitely not the optimal workflow.

We always strive to provide the same features across all our supported platforms. One of these is a user-friendly integration of the vault into the running OS to easily access content of unlocked vaults. For the desktop systems, this feature was always present and recently we added it in our new iOS app. The last OS, where it is missing is Android. And the way to resolve this, is implementing a Document Provider for our Android app.

The Document Provider feature creates a virtual access point to an unlocked vault, with the consequence that you can conveniently browse and access a vault’s content via the standard file browser. Also, any app which supports browsing through Document Providers can directly load files from your unlocked vault without the need to go via Cryptomator’s app GUI.

Development Status

The development is tracked in the following ticket of our issue tracker: https://github.com/cryptomator/android/issues/35

As you can see, the issue is already quite old and got over the time a countable amount of comments. After publishing the source code of the app at the end of 2020, our plan was to work on this important feature.

From the technical side, we already determined the parts of code needed to be edited, developed a concept and built a proof of concept (see the linked ticket). The next step would be to actually implement it including rigorous testing.

Unfortunately, we determined that integrating Document Provider into the existing app would require major architectural changes, therefore requiring a lot of time and resources. We have exciting plans with Cryptomator after our next major release with version 1.6.0 so that we have to delay the development of the Document Provider integration to the end of 2021.

Meanwhile, maybe you, our community can help us out.

Call for Contributions

Cryptomator for Desktop was always open source. Cryptomator for iOS and Android are now open source as well. And as such, we also rely on our community to receive feedback, distribute the app and improve its functionality.

So, we are always very excited about contributions and are happy to assist, especially when it comes to the Document Provider. 😉

Cryptomator 2.0 for iOS: Open Source and Beta Release

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Finally, the time has come! 🎉 The brand new iOS app of Cryptomator can now be tried out in a beta version via TestFlight and the project is now, as previously announced, fully open-source! This means that the entire Cryptomator family is now open-source, consisting of the Desktop, Android, and iOS versions.

Cryptomator 2.0 for iOS on TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/WMtYSrzD
Open-source repository on GitHub: https://github.com/cryptomator/ios

The new Cryptomator app with full integration into the Files app of iOS fulfills one of the biggest feature requests. For example, it is now possible to save encrypted files directly into a Cryptomator vault within Word. On iPad, drag & drop is possible with the new app. In general, all features of the Files app are automatically supported by Cryptomator.

Development on the new iOS app started just over a year ago and was rewritten from scratch in the Swift programming language. We are now using the latest tools to develop the app and can therefore support new features of iOS faster. This makes the project more future-proof and easier to maintain. Half a year ago, we were able to open-source the Android app and have released numerous updates with great contributions from the community since then. We couldn’t wait to release the source code of the new iOS app as well. Through open-source, the new app is now accessible to all interested developers and the whole community, as we are used to from our other projects.

We are looking forward to your feedback and contributions and are very grateful to you and the whole community that made this step possible. To support the ongoing open-source development of Cryptomator, consider donating or sponsoring. ❤️

Strategic Autonomy in Danger: European Tech Companies Warn Of Lowering Data Protection Levels in the EU

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Joint statement from IT companies Boxcryptor, Cryptomator, Mailbox.org, Mail.de, Mailfence, Praxonomy, Tresorit, and Tutanota.

In the course of the initiative “Fighting child sexual abuse: detection, removal, and reporting of illegal content”, the European Union plans to abolish the digital privacy of correspondence. In order to automatically detect illegal content, all private chat messages are to be screened in the future. This should also apply to content that has so far been protected with strong end-to-end encryption. If this initiative is implemented according to the current plan it would enormously damage our European ideals and the indisputable foundations of our democracy, namely freedom of expression and the protection of privacy. The initiative would also severely harm Europe’s strategic autonomy and thus EU-based companies.

Europe as a global technology leader is respected internationally for its high level of data protection, notably due to the exemplary effect of the GDPR. In an internationally very competitive market, European companies are in first position when it comes to data protection. The EU initiative could now endanger this unique selling point of European IT companies.

For these reasons we request:

The high level of data protection in the European Union must be maintained.
Fundamental rights must be preserved, especially the right to privacy and digital privacy of correspondence.
Call for mass surveillance is too simplistic and short-thought.

High level of data protection in the EU must be maintained

The General Data Protection Regulation is a global model for the protection of personal data. Some countries have already launched or enacted their own versions of the GDPR. The European Union now planning exactly the opposite steps is a wrong signal with fatal effects for the EU as an IT location. High data protection standards lead to great trust in European IT products. The “Made in Europe” label weighs heavily in our customers’ – not only in Europe, but worldwide. The compulsion to break the high protection of end-to-end encrypted communication endangers the business of numerous IT companies throughout the EU. It would destroy an important unique selling point for European IT companies on the global market.

We explicitly emphasize that access to encrypted communication by private organizations and public authorities is incompatible with a strong EU as a technology location.

Right to privacy and the digital secrecy of correspondence

Protected communication is essential for coexistence within our society. The doctor’s duty of confidentiality and the attorney-client privilege, for example, are considered immeasurably valuable rights. But how are these professions supposed to maintain their professional secrecy if protected communication with patients and clients is not possible? Like most modern industries they rely on secure, digital communication to keep their vows of confidentiality. The monitoring of all communication within number-independent services equals a technological setback to the 20th century. Postal and personal communication would be left the only secure alternatives.

Yet, the EU initiative will not stop crimes from being committed. It will also not stop criminal individuals to set up private, end-to-end encrypted chat services for illegal activities with little effort and thus continue to elude law enforcement authorities. It is the majority of private individuals, relying on public networks with many participants, who will be truly affected by the EU initiative – and who will be deprived of their right to confidential communication in digital spaces.

The protection of digital privacy of correspondence must not be weakened. To the contrary, with the steady shift of sensitive communication in all areas of our society to the digital sphere, strong end-to-end encryption is imperative.

Call for mass surveillance is too simplistic and short-thought

Finally, we would like to call on the European Commission to refrain from populist, actionist politics and to solve problems on the substantive level. To effectively ban secure communications for all EU citizens makes life unsafe for everyone.

The abolition of privacy is particularly problematic in relation to private communication. Automated checks of most intimate messages like nude pictures sent via public networks, for example, can result in employees of international corporations and police authorities viewing these intimate images. In other words: strangers gain access to someone’s most personal messages and could in turn disseminate them. This creates a new risk.

Mass surveillance does not, as some argue, contribute to preventing terrorism or child sexual abuse. Sascha Lobo has argued in the German news magazine Der Spiegel that more surveillance does not necessarily lead to more security : “Since 2014, a total of 24 identified perpetrators have carried out 13 Islamist murder attacks in the EU – and all, yes literally 100 percent of the attackers were previously known to the authorities and had a propensity for violence.”

The Effectiveness of mass surveillance in solving crimes has not been proven. However, three things are certain to help in effectively protecting children from sexual violence:

Targeted prosecution, instead of overburdening the authorities with harmless footage.
Prevention and intervention work in families and institutions, regular public discussions with experts in the media, and mandatory training for all those who work with people.
Recognition of the fact that abuse mostly happens within the family.

In summary, we conclude: We must not base the standards of our society on the behavior of criminals. Crimes cannot be prevented by making every citizen a potential suspect.

We see a clear danger in the EU initiative “Fighting child sexual abuse: detection, removal, and reporting of illegal content” that secure communication for citizens and companies is to be abandoned on the grounds of child protection. This must not happen in an open, democratic society.

As experts in the field of secure communication, we are available to discuss with the EU Commission on what is technically feasible.

This letter was written with the assistance of Tanja Bullert, community worker specializing in the prevention of and intervention in sexualized violence.

Signatory:

Cryptomator Roadmap Early 2021

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Development on Cryptomator 1.5.x is coming to an end and we are now working on the next major version 1.6.x. Read more about it in this roadmap!

State of the Desktop App

The update to version 1.6.0 is just around the corner! The release will mainly contain some invisible changes that will allow us to add new features in a timely manner. One of the main points here is to implement a new vault format (Vault Format 8). It makes the integration of other authentication methods in the future possible, for example to enable 2FA.

Another feature is the integration of a sanitizer. Until now, a separate program was needed to check the state of your vault and to execute cleanup and restore commands. In the future, this will be possible directly in the Cryptomator user interface.

In addition, there is now a prototype for the distribution of Cryptomator as a Microsoft Software Installation (.msi), but the implementation still has alpha character. Furthermore, we have updated Cryptomator to JDK 16 with the latest version 1.5.14, which brings some upstream fixes. Unfortunately, we could not make any progress with regard to Flatpak.

State of the Android App

As you might have noticed in our blog, we finally published the source code of the app! Apart from that, vault format 8 is also a big topic in our development here.

Since the update to version 1.5.14 (currently still in a beta version), pCloud is natively supported by Cryptomator. Many thanks to Manu for his open source contribution! Another small change is that since the update 1.5.13, it is possible to sort the vault list and thus get a better overview of the vaults.

But that’s not all we have planned for the Android app! We are happy to release Cryptomator on F-Droid soon. Also, we hope to be able to include more clouds soon and enable access to content of the vault via third-party apps with a “document provider”.

State of the iOS App

With the introduction of vault format 8, the “old” iOS app will probably get its last major update to version 1.6.0.

Meanwhile, work on the “new” iOS app continues. As announced in the last roadmap, the iOS app will be fully integrated into the Files app. We are already very far along. Nevertheless, we still have some work to do, as we want to offer some features like dark mode or support for multiple accounts from the same cloud provider right from the start.

We can’t promise you an exact release date yet, but we hope we will release a first beta version via TestFlight in the summer.

World Backup Day: How to Be on the Safe Side

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Basically, there are two types of people: Those who back up regularly and those who have never lost data. On the occasion of “World Backup Day”, we want to explain to you why you should think about creating a backup regularly, even if you have been lucky so far.

What does a backup actually do?

In general, a backup is a copy of your data. This can be your smartphone, your laptop, your hard drive, family photos, etc. If your device stops working for any reason, your data is not lost if you have created a backup. Therefore, it is recommended to back up your data at regular intervals to prevent major losses.

How do I create a backup?

It is important that your data is stored in an external location. Many still associate a backup with an external data carrier, such as a hard drive. However, this is inferior to the modern cloud variant in two elementary points.

In general, every device has a certain percentage probability of failure. In the case of a hard drive, for example, this failure probability can be between 1.7% (in the first year) and 8.6% (in the third year), not including possible external circumstances such as fire or water damage. Of course, you can also create a backup on several hard drives, the more you use, the lower the probability of failure.

Another risk factor with external hard drives is the lack of geographic redundancy, in short, location independence. In other words, if your house catches fire, both your computer and the backup on the hard drive are gone. Of course, that’s a rather drastic way of putting it, but that is the basic concept. You can achieve geographical redundancy by storing the data on the servers of cloud providers; it is not uncommon for them to be geographically distributed all over the world.

The problem of the failure probability is minimized by arranging the hard drives in parallel. In short, this means that several functionally identical, redundant copies of the backup exist at the same time, but only one of these needs to function in order to make the backup data available. You can think of this as mirroring data, with each mirroring the risk of data loss decreases.

How do I protect my backup in the cloud?

Generally, your data is protected in the cloud behind an account. However, they are of course still stored on servers and are therefore never 100% secure from unauthorized access. With the help of cloud encryption, you can take the security of your data into your own hands. With Cryptomator, you can create a kind of “magic” vault that can only be accessed by those who have the correct password to open the vault. This way, attackers can theoretically still access the cloud, but cannot do anything with the encrypted data.

You can download Cryptomator free of charge here.