Azure customers can now increase security for their cloud file storage accounts with encryption at rest and spin up Azure virtual machines at a lower cost.

New AES-256 encryption for data at rest, more efficient storage APIs and a revamped Storage Explorer app are among Azure Storage updates announced during this week's Build developer conference.

Microsoft plans to disable Secure Sockets Layer 3.0 encryption support in its Azure Storage service next month.

Microsoft recently announced the public preview of Azure Container Storage, a volume management service built natively for containers.

Azure Key Vault currently supports Azure Virtual Machine certificates. Support for Azure Storage encryption is at the preview stage.

Object storage—AWS S3, Azure Blob and Google Cloud Storage—are the most well-developed of the cloud storage services.

Continuing its effort to secure data in the cloud, Microsoft has now brought encryption of data at rest by default to its Azure Search cloud component. Available right now in all regions and SKUs.

Microsoft today announced several security-oriented improvements for Azure SQL Database, a managed relational database available on the Azure public cloud.

Microsoft is taking a number of steps to try and reassure customers about the integrity of the company’s offerings and to greatly expand the use of encryption across its services.

Of course -- Microsoft is now supporting its own PlayReady encryption technology for live streaming from the Microsoft Azure public cloud.