Microsoft
OneDrive Overview

Cloud storage is more popular today than ever before. Experts say it has solidified its reputation as the most reliable storage system in the market. That’s why over the years, we’ve seen more and more organizations adopting cloud-based storage solutions.

Perhaps the main reason for this is the flexibility to access data virtually from anywhere and anytime. This eliminates the costs of investing and maintaining on-site physical storage.

Today, we will take a close look at OneDrive as a cloud-storage solution and the benefits users enjoy. Read on to gain more insights about this cloud-based storage solution.

Microsoft OneDrive Definition

Microsoft OneDrive is cloud-based storage available for Microsoft account owners. Users can use the storage to store files and access them later, anywhere and anytime, irrespective of the device they’re using.

The cloud storage seamlessly synchronizes with your PC, allowing you to work on your files online or offline. Besides being easy to use, OneDrive is accessible via mobile devices, and it’s integrated with desktop Office.

Microsoft OneDrive for Business is cloud storage more suited for organizations. It’s offered as part of Office 365 or on SharePoint Servers. Through OneDrive, administrators and employees can share and collaborate on work documents.

Benefits of Microsoft OneDrive

1. Identity and Access Management

It’s important for enterprises to manage their users’ identity and their access policies to restrict unauthorized access to the organization’s confidential documents and files. But doing this on the cloud is not that simple.

Luckily, OneDrive and SharePoint for Business allow the integration of Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). Azure AD lets organizations manage identities and access across their apps from a central point on-premise or cloud.

Users of Office 365 and OneDrive for Business can also enable multi-factor authentication. This feature boosts the security of a user’s login beyond just passwords. Not only does it help in identity and access management, but it also reduces the risk of security breaches.

2. Threat Protection

Cloud storage allows organizations to share and access their data from anywhere. But this also means that their data is susceptible to cyber-attacks.

To address this issue, Microsoft integrated OneDrive with Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection to shield users from security threats such as new malware and viruses. One feature of Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection is Safe Attachments.

Once enabled, the feature acts as a shield and protects the files stored in OneDrive. It identifies and blocks files with malware or viruses in team sites and document libraries. You will still see the file in your document library and in your mobile, PC, and Web application, but you won’t be able to modify or transfer it. The only way forward is to delete the file.

Additionally, Microsoft 365 includes an integrated virus detection system that inspects content uploaded to SharePoint and OneDrive by users. When it identifies a suspicious document, it flags it and restricts users’ access to the content.

5. Security Management

Like any other cloud-based storage solution, people are concerned about the security of their data on OneDrive. In OneDrive, Microsoft BitLocker Driver Encryption encrypts data both at the disk and file levels.

In this platform, administrators can limit external sharing permissions for users working on confidential information. Therefore, these users can’t share sensitive organization files via the cloud storage solution.

Besides that, all communications between users’ PC to OneDrive and vice versa are SSL/TSL protected. The data transfers from one Microsoft data center to another take place over an encrypted network.