Questions about iCloud Drive security and encryption

Not really significantly. In fact the NSA has classified all AES strengths as sufficiently secure to protect government data classified as Secret. While Top Secret requires 192 or 256.

Until May 2009, the only successful published attacks against the full AES were side-channel attacks on some specific implementations. The National Security Agency (NSA) reviewed all the AES finalists, including Rijndael, and stated that all of them were secure enough for U.S. Government non-classified data. In June 2003, the U.S. Government announced that AES could be used to protect classified information:

The design and strength of all key lengths of the AES algorithm (i.e., 128, 192 and 256) are sufficient to protect classified information up to the SECRET level. TOP SECRET information will require use of either the 192 or 256 key lengths. The implementation of AES in products intended to protect national security systems and/or information must be reviewed and certified by NSA prior to their acquisition and use.^[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard

Unless you think your bank statement data falls in the category of Top Secret...

Beyond that, Apple does not directly participate here. Outside of the mods / hosts which just enforce the rules, and the Specialists which generally only answer posts that have gone unanswered for more than a couple of days, there is no direct involvement by Apple here.

Whether an Apple employee is able to access your data in icloud, is unknown. Apple does not disclose this. information. What we do know, is that given the hacks and breakings to several companies servers, such as Target, Equifax, Yahoo, etc... Apple has remained unbreached as far as anyone knows. Which should at the very least provide a better sense of security than storing things in other locations.

Also, do you think your banks statements cannot be seen by your bank's employees? What happens if they are unscrupulous themselves? What happens if your bank is compromised? How much safer do you think your Bank is, than Apple, if at all?

We are users like you and don't have access to the inner workings of how security is handled. You might try asking Apple at their Customer service number.

Apple Customer Relations: 800-275-2773

Its explained in the support document you came from. iCloud Drive is encrypted in transit and on server with at least 128 bit AES encryption.

The table in that support document specifically addresses that:

There's not much more that can be said besides that.

You wrote - but that wasn’t my question. I want to know about Apple’s security policies at their server farms .

We all are routine Mac users , participating in the discussions forum , and no ideas about their securities .

You can contact apple support advisors see this link Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support

I'm not arguing about you wanting to store your document securely. I'm just pointing out just how securely do you really need them to be?

I can understand wanting them to be secure within certain parameters, but it comes down to whether you trust a service or not, and the encryption they use within the information they provide.

If you cannot trust Apple, then you should not store your document on their service. Simple as that.

There's no real way for anyone to provide complete and utter security anywhere. And probably no way for you get a satisfactory answer about how Apple operates its iCloud service as that would in fact compromise it. Best way to have secure operation, is to not disclose the details of its functionality to anyone.

You can contact Apple Support directly, but its unlikely they even know or can tell you if they do know exactly how iCloud Drive is operated and what kind of access employees have to it as I'm sure iron clad NDAs are involved for those who know exactly what kind of access exists if any.

We've provided the information that is available to users. All you can do is make a decision based on that information.

No one can open your Mac , unless you reveal admin password to them , and if you create a pdf folder and add in iCloud Drive , even use air drop no one can change the read and write permissions , only admin gas its rights see this article macOS Sierra: Set permissions for items on your Mac

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions. There are a few Community Specialist who post.