Child Item

Dropbox acquires Boxcryptor. What will happen to all those files that have been encrypted?

riccardo1981

As most will know, dropbox has purchased boxcryptor.
At this point my question is, what will happen to all those files that have been encrypted with boxcryptor ? Should they all be decrypted and wait for communication on how the transaction will be handled by Dropbox ?
Boxcryptor was used to encrypt files using other cloud services, will this change ?

Thank you very much
Riccardo

Find more posts tagged with

Security

Account Access

Disagree

Accepted answers

Rich

@riccardo1981 wrote:
At this point my question is, what will happen to all those files that have been encrypted with boxcryptor ?

Since this is such a new development, such answers are likely not available yet, beyond what has been stated by the Boxcryptor founders (emphasis mine).

What does this mean for our users and customers?

First of all: All our existing users and customers will remain with the German Secomba GmbH with the same shareholders as during the past 10 years. No contracts, customer data or keys will migrate to Dropbox, all data will remain in our German data centers.

While we’ve sold several key technology assets to Dropbox, we will continue to service our existing users and customers pursuant to the terms of their existing contracts. However, as of today, we will not allow the creation of new accounts or purchases of any new licenses.

If you’re an existing customer, you can keep using Boxcryptor as you do today, and we’ll be in touch with more details as we join forces with Dropbox. If you’re new here and would like to stay up to date on Dropbox’s progress, join the Dropbox mailing list.

You will also find the most important FAQs regarding the next steps below.

All comments

Martin R.19

The latest development with Microsofts "lost" masterkey confirms again how important it is to use zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption for cloud servers. Providers that don't offer this technology for all(!) plans as a standard, can no longer be considered as trustworthy and professional. The poor communication and actions by MS regarding this matter is same level that we can expect from Dropbox after such an incident...

Dwight B.3

That answer doesn’t even begin to answer the question about what will happen to my files that are encrypted using Boxcryptor, especially those files stored on other services, such as Google Drive. How about answering the questions asked by your loyal users? You’e been ignoring us for months. How about some answers!

apfund

Hi @Dwight B.3 ,

I understand your concerns, and I apologize if the responses provided so far have not met your expectations.

Regarding Boxcryptor, I regret to inform you that it will no longer be available for customers in the future. This means that you will need to seek an alternative solution for your encryption needs for other storage providers than Dropbox.

For Dropbox business users, we will introduce our own native implementation of end-to-end encryption in the upcoming months. Early access for this feature will begin in December 2023, with a planned public release scheduled for April 2024.

UnicormPink

Hello, I have wanted to use Dropbox for about four months. I like the offering, but my only issue is that it doesn't come with E2EE. The acquisition of Boxcryptor last year was meant to have resolved this with this being offered to business users.

Is there any update on this? I will be a paid user when this happens.

Tomachi

I've not been able to recover my files reticent to use and lay for Dropbox account if I am unsure if the investment will pay off

saima1412

Hi Riccardo, I'm not sure what Dropbox's plans are for BoxCryptor, but I would recommend reaching out to their customer support team for more information. In the meantime, it may be a good idea to decrypt your files and make backups just in case. As for encryption with other cloud services, it's hard to say whether or not that will change until we hear more about Dropbox's plans.

apfund

Hi @UnicormPink , we will start to onboard first early access customers to our native end-to-end encryption implementation. We plan to release the public version in April next year.
Thank you for your patience!

Martin R.19

@UnicormPink

Dropbox's plans were just explained here again by @apfund .i.e. that Boxcryptor will no longer be available as stand-alone solution (for other cloud services) but its technology will be used to implement a native E2E encryption into paid Dropbox packages.

As mentioned here earlier and in at least one more thread, it is not necessary to decrypt your files if you have downloaded your private key from your Boxcryptor account. You can do the decryption offline(!) at any later time when needed.

@Tomachi
What do you mean by "...unable to recover...". Could you please provide more details? Do you mean that you could not decrypt the files or what?

Steve-IR

You mentioned earlier in this thread that encryption is only going to be available to “business” customers. Does that include your “Essentials” plans or is this limited to what is actually named “Business” accounts (that have a 3 user minimum)? I’m willing to stick around for awhile and wait for an Essentials add-on but an upgrade to Business makes no sense for individuals - especially given that there are cloud providers that offer zero knowledge encryption right out of the box (i.e. sync.com)?

Martin R.19

This was never clearly communicated either, but reading between the lines I feel that such implemented encryption will really only be available for such business packages. I wonder how the owners of such business packages will encrypt their data in the meantime...

Steve-IR

Dropbox should clarify this - and I think it would be a mistake to keep this from lower-tier paid plans because once a user leaves the service it is unlikely they simply return when this feature is added in the future (unless of course they are really unhappy with the alternative provider). So far, Dropbox got away with not having zke because of Boxcryptor and to some degree they still do because folks can use Boxcryptor as a local installation (sans mobile access, of course) - But that will eventually disappear with a future OS update that renders the Boxcryptor apps obsolete.

Martin R.19

Dropbox should have clarified a lot and made countless mistakes about this whole merger. You can't beat their dilettantism. I will never understand why they did everything in the worst possible way. And people still trust them with unencrypted data...🤦🏻‍♂️

andrewfrey

Boxcryptor / "Secomba GmbH i.L." acquired by Dropbox

Does anyone have any idea when Dropbox is going to provide any updated information regarding they acquired "Key Assets" from Boxcryptor back in December 2022. Since then all of us loyal Boxycryptor users that counted on the ZERO Knowledge base encryption have been kicked to the curb, both by Secomba GmbH i.L., and by Dropbox. It has now been 12-months since Secomba GmbH i.L sold all of us loyal user out for a quick money grab and nothing but crickets from Dropbox on this topic. I would have expected Dropbox to be concerned with upsetting its customer-base so bad that we will never continue using there services even after or if they get there act together and actually provide the embedded version of ZERO Knowledge Encryption they acquired.

Martin R.19

It remains a mystery why Secomba and Dropbox were so amateurish with the merger. They have completely ruined their image and no matter what products and plans they come up with in the future, I will never trust such amateurs again. I'm meanwhile used to and happy with my new structures and solutions.

apfund

Hi @andrewfrey and @Steve-IR ,

my team is working on implementing end-to-end encryption natively in our Dropbox product.
As mentioned before, we are starting to onboard first early access customers next week and plan to release the feature in April 2024.
Concerning the eligibility of customers, our primary focus is on catering to the needs of business customers through this solution. Unfortunately, at this point in time, I'm unable to share more details. But I'll keep you in the loop.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

saima1412

yes, you are right. As of now, there has been no official statement regarding the future of Boxcryptor and its encryption services. It is still unclear what will happen to the files that have been encrypted with Boxcryptor. It is possible that Dropbox may continue to support Boxcryptor's encryption services, or they may provide an alternative service to their users.

apfund

Hi @saima1412 , the boxcryptor team has published an official blogpost regarding the future of boxcryptor here.
Existing customers and users receive a notice of cancellation of the service and will only be able to use the Boxcryptor product until the end of their subscription. When the cancellation period is over, the corresponding accounts will be locked and the connected devices will be disconnected.
This means, that boxcryptor customers should decrypt their data by then. If there are any questions, you can reach out to the boxcryptor support team.

saima1412

thank you so much for the update. let me go through this blogpost..

c_my_name_is

Hi @apfund ( Andrea ),

is there a way to become an early access customer ( as a business user, reseller ) ? 2Q24 is a little disappointing as first 3Q-4Q 23 was stated as release timeframe.

thx

SMRose_FL

Boxcryptor was acquired by Dropbox. Will encryption be available on Dropbox and when? And will encryption be available on other online storage accounts, like it was in Boxcryptor?

apfund

Hi @SMRose_FL

we are currently working on our native implementation of end-to-end encryption for Dropbox.

We are planning to release the feature for our business customers in April next year.

SMRose_FL

Thank you for your response. Does this mean that individuals will not be able to use Encryption on Dropbox?

c_my_name_is

Yep - as mentioned earlier in different posts - only for business accounts.

Dwight B.3

If you were a Boxcryptor user before the sale to Dropbox, you can still use it as a Local Account. However, you will need to have the decryption key to do this. Hopefully, by now you will already have that key since you can only download it if your account is still active.

Martin R.19

Yes, actually this was well communicated by BC and hopefully everyone downloaded the keys in time. Another issue Mac users need to be aware of is that the BC app is not compatible with newer MacOS versions like Ventura or Sonoma. If you still need to decrypt files, you will need to have access to older MacOS versions or Windows. Keep this in mind. Download the BC Apps for later installation, as no one knows when BC will close the website. If you install BC now, you will have to choose the option for a local account, as your (free) online account no longer exists.

Mark

@SMRose_FL wrote:
Thank you for your response. Does this mean that individuals will not be able to use Encryption on Dropbox?

Yes this is correct. As has been said its going to be a Business only offering.

Mark

@c_my_name_is wrote:
Hi @apfund ( Andrea ),

is there a way to become an early access customer ( as a business user, reseller ) ? 2Q24 is a little disappointing as first 3Q-4Q 23 was stated as release timeframe.

thx

Being honest - never ever believe or follow the timescales issued by Dropbox.... they are still rolling out Paper 2020 and we are just about to enter 2024!

Dwight B.3

I'm on Ventura, and as far as I can tell, it is working flawlessly. However, I never upgraded to the latest version (v3.x?). I'm still on v2.48. So maybe that's why.

Martin R.19

thanks for the info/correction. So most probably I need to correct and limit my previous statement regarding the compatibility to MacOS 14 Sonoma. I tried to install BC 2.48 but got the error message that this version is not compatible with the OS. I didn't try BC version 3.x

marcusss

can we use a local boxcryptor account on a windows PC?

If yes, how please

Marc