Paper 2024/1616

End-to-End Encrypted Cloud Storage in the Wild: A Broken Ecosystem

Abstract

End-to-end encrypted cloud storage offers a way for individuals and organisations to delegate their storage needs to a third-party, while keeping control of their data using cryptographic techniques. We conduct a cryptographic analysis of various products in the ecosystem, showing that many providers fail to provide an adequate level of security. In particular, we provide an in-depth analysis of five end-to-end encrypted cloud storage systems, namely Sync, pCloud, Icedrive, Seafile, and Tresorit, in the setting of a malicious server. These companies cumulatively have over 22 million users and are major providers in the field. We unveil severe cryptographic vulnerabilities in four of them. Our attacks invalidate the marketing claims made by the providers of these systems, showing that a malicious server can, in some cases, inject files in the encrypted storage of users, tamper with file data, and even gain direct access to the content of the files. Many of our attacks affect multiple providers in the same way, revealing common failure patterns in independent cryptographic designs. We conclude by discussing the significance of these patterns beyond the security of the specific providers.