Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it will be adding a new feature to its OneDrive cloud storage service which is known as Personal Vault. It will be providing a secure solution for your most sensitive and important data. This new service may be able to fill the void left by Dropbox’s latest transition.
The new OneDrive Personal Vault feature will be protected by an additional step of identity verification, such as a PIN, fingerprint / facial authentication, or a two-factor authentication (2FA) code and if you store files in the new Personal Vault area, you’ll be prompted for an additional code each time you have to access them via the web, PC, or mobile devices. This secured area is designed mainly for files like copies of passports, identification cards, or more sensitive personal financial information.
“We’ve been evaluating this for quite a while,” Seth Patton, General Manager of Microsoft 365. said. “When we did the original 1TB, there was a lot of analysis about what was right for customers and our partners. It took a long time to analyze sustainable service goals.” He also said “Microsoft doesn’t want Office 365 users to see OneDrive as simply a place for backup; the company wants to position OneDrive as part of the integrated Office 365 service.”
All OneDrive files are already encrypted by default both at rest and in transit. Personal Vault adds another layer of optional security features on top of this. In that OneDrive app, this is represented by a special Personal Vault folder that you can then use to save your most important files — or those with the largest amount of sensitive information (think financial records etc.).
On Windows 10 PCs, Personal Vault also sets up a Bitlocker-encrypted area on your local hard drive to sync your Personal Vault files.
Microsoft says Personal Vault will be available “soon” in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, spreading to the rest of the world by the end of 2019.