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The best defense against ransomware is to back up your files to write-protected media. Back in the days of floppy disks, you could put a tab over a slot to write protect it. Throughout most of computing history, removable media had switches or equivalent for write protection. A lot of modern removable media has no such feature; the manufacturers of the media are assisting the ransomware authors by making it less convenient to defend against the ransomware.
Microsoft also assists ransomeware authors by using your hard drives for mysterious purposes, so you can never tell if the drive activity is legitimate vs ransomware.
Another alternative is to back up on the internet, on websites that let you store stuff but not delete it. You should encrypt it first, of course. If they don't let you delete it, the ransomware can't delete it either.
Best protection is a local backup drive that is not connected except when doing a backup.
What's to prevent the ransomware from working on the backup drive while the backup is in progress? And when you finish the backup, are you never going to look at the backup drive again? If you mount it, the ransomware can start working on it while you browse the files or whatever.
Best protection is a local backup drive that is not connected except when doing a backup.
I would disagree that this is the best protection possible. It is probably the best for the least amount of money, as long as you pay attention and have a versioned backup, to prevent what eok mentioned.
In answer to EOK, when ransomware strikes, you will know it within a short time. it is not stealth.
Sure you can imagine theoretical situations where the ransomware strikes just as you begin a backup. In that event you are screwed, but it is not real world.
NHDave, there is no "best protection possible". That's why I use both online versioned automatic backup AND local backup to a removable HDD that is only connected when I'm doing a backup. During local backup, I do not use my computer for anything else, and I have my email set up for manual download, too, so I control when stuff comes in.
Maybe I should get infected?
I might even get a check from them!
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