Safe place to store digital payslips?

B0bbyEwing

I like to have them easy accessible & together in yearly order. 
They're sent to us in a password protected .pdf to our email.

Currently I then remove the password & store in Google Drive (long random password & 2FA to my account). I'm wondering about the security side of this.

Beyond various numbers which I don't imagine will be much to anyone, they obviously have

full name
my employers name
NINO
My address
Employee number
Tax Code

Other than that it's just various totals.

I'd rather not just leave them in their emails as the only way of accessing. Currently having to go through a large number of them & it's incredibly faffy entering the password for each, scrolling down, selecting more, password, repeat repeat repeat.

So is there a 'safe' (as can be) way of storing all these together (with password removed as I currently do)?

Frozen_up_north

Another vote for VeraCrypt. Google Drive for personal users has access to your files by Google employees, I store photos and personal files on Proton Drive, which is an order of magnitude more secure from employees than Google. Proton Drive is free up to 5 GB and around £3.29 per month for 200 GB. https://proton.me/drive

Eyeful

Suggest you encrypt information before you up load such info.
Have a look at using these. You can see how to use these on YouTube videos.
1. Cryptomator: https://cryptomator.org/
2. 7zip will encrypt files & folders : https://7-zip.org/download.html
3. As others have said there is  VeraCrypt

Consider using Proton Drive

B0bbyEwing

Thanks. I actually have Veracrypt installed on my PC.

In this instance, since the .pdf's are password protected, would you even bother encrypting? 

It doesn't mention anything in Outlook about encryption but as I open a browser & go to my gmail account it tells me the payslip .pdf's are encrypted.

RobfromCornwall

I have no concerns storing these locally on my device and backed up/synced using iCloud.  Maybe I should be. 

Oh, and I'm fond of combining pdfs into one big one so I have one document rather than one per month.

Frozen_up_north

B0bbyEwing said:

In this instance, since the .pdf's are password protected, would you even bother encrypting? 

Personally I wouldn’t trust PDF encryption, or anything in MS Office. If you check on line, there are password crackers for Office and maybe PDF files too. Veracrypt is a better bet for securing anything of a sensitive nature.

PRAISETHESUN

Another vote for veracrypt and to also encrypt anything before you upload it, instead of relying on the encryption of the cloud service provider.

B0bbyEwing

Just thinking - some times I like/need to view files where they're held, be it Dropbox or Google Drive or whatever, on my phone.

Is there a way to still do that if they're encrypted?

Frozen_up_north

B0bbyEwing said:

Just thinking - some times I like/need to view files where they're held, be it Dropbox or Google Drive or whatever, on my phone.

Is there a way to still do that if they're encrypted?

Proton Drive is end to encrypted and Proton do not have the keys. There is an iPhone app. Maybe an Android one too. Up to 5GB is free

B0bbyEwing

Frozen_up_north said:

B0bbyEwing said:

Just thinking - some times I like/need to view files where they're held, be it Dropbox or Google Drive or whatever, on my phone.

Is there a way to still do that if they're encrypted?

Proton Drive is end to encrypted and Proton do not have the keys. There is an iPhone app. Maybe an Android one too. Up to 5GB is free

I'm wondering if I've got the wrong end of the stick there. 

If I encrypt with Veracrypt then I'm thinking I'd need to be able to decrypt that file from my phone. 

Unless you're meaning Proton Drive would sort of act as Veracrypt in this case & I'd just upload the file (an Excel spreadsheet in the case of my previous question) directly, unencrypted? 

Frozen_up_north

Proton Drive stores your files/photos encrypted. It uses a key only you have, so nobody else can access your data. There is an iPhone app for Proton Drive giving easy access and semi-auto photo uploading, as well as access using a web browser on a PC using "drag and drop" from File Explorer.

The potential issue with iCloud, Google Drive, etc. is the company holds the keys... hence the suggestion of encrypting the data with Veracrypt before uploading. A rogue employee, a local government nosey parker, or a hacker, or any number of listed organisations, could potentially obtain your stored data.

While the vast majority of us have nothing to hide, why should we store our correspondence, family photos, and our written works, in a facility where others can read/view it, or worse still post it to the dark side of the web in a data breach.