Microsoft Onedrive: Secret synchronization or wrong click?
According to media reports, Microsoft is moving towards activating folder synchronization in Onedrive without being asked.
(Image: Nopparat Khokthong/ Shutterstock.com)
Microsoft has quietly and secretly changed the behavior during the initial Windows 11 installation without any further announcement. The company was thus able to activate automatic folder synchronization without further inquiry. This is the accusation made by several media outlets.
The media reports are based on a report from Neowin on Wednesday night. Anyone who sets up their computer the way Microsoft wants it - connected to the Internet and logged into a Microsoft account - will have their Desktop, Pictures, Documents, Music and Videos folders synchronized with Onedrive in the Microsoft cloud. Depending on how much is stored there, users could end up with a desktop and folders filled to the brim with shortcuts to all sorts of things, right at the end of a clean Windows installation.
Allegations not plausible
However, in Germany, with installation in German, such behavior cannot be observed. It has become more difficult to install Windows 11 with a local account- this has been known for just over two weeks. But when installing the latest ISO images of Windows 11 23H2 with a Microsoft account, the allegations made cannot be verified.
What struck us as somewhat perfidious and suspicious during the Windows installation, however, was the step involving the Onedrive settings. Here, installers are asked to decide whether automatic synchronization of their own folders should be switched on or remain deactivated. The question simply disappears after about 15 seconds and jumps to the next dialog page of the setup wizard. Regardless of whether something was clicked or not. But even if nothing is clicked there, automatic folder synchronization does not occur in our tests.
(Image: Screenshot / dmk)
The causes of the cases observed by Neowin for the activated automatic folder synchronization remain unclear. It is conceivable that the users simply answered a question "incorrectly" in an inattentive moment and thus changed the setting. It could also be that the updates that Microsoft applies as part of the "Out-of-Box-Experience" (OOBE) onboarding after reinstalling Windows were temporarily faulty and activated the option in Onedrive. A request to Microsoft in this regard could not be answered immediately. We will update the message if necessary.
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Automatic synchronization of your own folders can be useful for accessing data independently of a specific computer. As Onedrive offers a version history, this could possibly also serve as a backup, for example if ransomware only encrypts files locally.
Nevertheless, your own data ends up in Microsoft's cloud. And it is not necessarily secure there: last year, Microsoft lost the master key to its Azure cloud, allowing cybercriminals to gain full access. Although Microsoft claims to protect the data and additionally encrypt it with AES256, the keys are stored in Azure Vaults - and this is precisely where Microsoft lost control last year. If data confidentiality is important to you, you should therefore use additional encryption for the Onedrive folders if necessary.
(dmk)
