In the course of around 2 decades, malware makers have evolved from annoying vandals to profit-seeking career criminals. There is no better example of this than the increasingly widespread use of ransomware.
Instead of simply destroying your files like a traditional virus, ransomware takes them hostage by encrypting them and asking for money in order for you to regain access. While our official advice for victims of ransomware is to “not negotiate with terrorists”, it’s easy to understand why paying up can sometimes seem like the only option.
Most of us have things on our computers that can’t be valued with a price tag: The book project we’re working on, photos from a family wedding, a half-completed master’s thesis… The real cost of ransomware could then be time, memories, your dreams, even career.
You should always back up your files, but as Murphy’s law dictates, something always seems to go wrong when we’re least prepared for it. For this reason, we have released a new version of SAFE, containing an advanced form of our Ransomware Protection.
Ransomware protection works by monitoring your important folders, using a system called DeepGuard. DeepGuard detects when a potentially harmful program tries to access those folders, using advanced tricks like behavioral analysis to detect and shut access by programs that are behaving in an abnormal, malicious way. The great thing about using behavioral analysis is that it will even stop previously unknown malware – the application simply has to behave like malware to be blocked.
You can find the Ransomware Protection feature under the DeepGuard tab in F-Secure SAFE starting from April 2018. Don’t let your memories and work be taken hostage: back up regularly and download F-Secure SAFE!
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