Encryption Details

How does MyOtherDrive encryption work?

If you would like to ensure that your files are 100% secure when transmitted and stored on MyOtherDrive, use our encryption option. Here's how it works. First, you mark a folder as encrypted. Once you have done that, any file uploaded into that folder is AES 128-bit encrypted. When a file is uploaded to our system, the first thing it does is check if the folder that the file is being uploaded into, is marked as encrypted. If so, then the file is AES encrypted on your computer first, and then transmitted and stored on MyOtherDrive's server in encrypted format. This means no one can see your raw files on the network nor on our storage servers.

To give you an idea of how strong 128-bit encryption is, the RC5 challenge enlisted a distributed network of over 30,000 computers to crack a 64-bit encrypted message. (distributed.net/rc5). It took 1,757 days to break it. To put that in perspective to 128-bit encryption, it would have taken 7,546,257,539,072 days to break 128-bit encryption (over 20 billion years). 65-bit Encryption is twice as strong as 64-bit. 66-bit encryption is twice as strong as 65-bit, and so on, up to 128-bit (it doubles for every additional bit). And remember, that was a distributed attack using over 30,000 computers.

The first step to using encryption is to set an encryption password. This is done from our Settings window, click the encryption tab. When you enter an encryption password, it is only stored on your computer, and never transmitted to our servers. It is stored in an encrypted format on your computer, per user (if more than one user has a username on your computer).

To encrypt a folder, select the folder you wish to encrypt and then click the Encrypt Folder button on the main toolbar. This will allow you to mark the folder as encrypted (or unencrypted). Also, you can choose to select 'subfolders' which will apply the encryption to all folders below. If a single folder is marked as encrypted, and a new folder is manually created below it, the folder below will automatically be encrypted too. This is true during uploads, backups, and imports. If you have a single top level folder you are uploading into, then as the folders are created below it during the upload, they will 'inherit' the encrypt setting.

If you would like to privately share encrypted folders with others, you can do so, but the person(s) with whom you are sharing must have the encryption password. Keep this in mind when choosing your encryption password. We do not recommend using an encryption password that is the same password as you use for your online banking, for example. Technically, you can use different encryption passwords for each folder, however, our system only stores the latest password. You would have to remember which encryption password you used for each folder. And you would need to mark the folder as encrypted after you changed your password, and you would need to upload the files while the password is active (the last one set).

See encryption help for detailed step-by-step instructions on how to set up encryption.