Viruses and other online threats have been around as long as the regular internet. But in recent years, a new, much nastier scourge has hit the web: the ransomware† Also known as ransomware, this malware infects your machine for one reason and to take money from you.
These programs have the particularity of hijacking the data on your hard drive. How ? By encrypting them without your knowledge. When your data is eventually encrypted and you don’t have the decryption key, you are completely blocked. Access to your most important data such as your documents, photos and videos, music, movies and more is completely blocked.
This is where the particularly cruel way of working ransomware Relying on the panic caused by the potential loss of data, the program offers you to pay a ransom in exchange for the key to decrypt your data. In order to limit the risk of falling victim to such an attack, it is preferable to take certain precautions.
But good news, Windows natively integrates a protection tool against: ransomware† Unfortunately, this security module is disabled by default. Find out how to set it up.
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1. Open Settings
Start by opening Windows Settings. Use the hotkey for this Windows+i† In the window that appears, select the menu Privacy and Security in the side panel.
2. Open the Windows Security Module
Once in the options Privacy and Securityclick on the first menu that appears at the top of the window, Windows Security†
In the next window click on the button Open Windows Security shown at the top.
3. Find the virus protection tool
A new window devoted entirely to the Windows Security should then open. Click on the menu in the left column Protection against viruses and threats†
Once in the menu, go to the bottom of the window and choose to Manage Ransomware Protection†
4. Enable Ransomware Protection
You are now in the window dedicated to protection against: ransomware† Then activate the small light switch displayed under the title Device for controlled access to files† In the warning window of User account controlselect Yes†
5. Choose folders to protect
When ransomware protection is enabled, new options will appear. You must now choose the folders that you absolutely want to protect against this formidable threat. Click on the menu for this Secure Folders†
By default, the Windows anti-ransomware module protects your folders Documents† Pictures† Videos† Music and Favorites†
However, you can add new folders to protect by clicking the button Add Secure Folder present at the top of the window.
6. Select Allowed apps
Now that ransomware protection is active on your PC, some of the software you use every day may no longer be able to access protected folders.
Windows’ anti-ransomware module probably detects certain applications as potentially risking your data, when they don’t.
To avoid these kinds of false positives, you can select the applications that you want to add to the list of authorized programs and therefore are not blocked by the anti-ransomware protection module.
Click on Authorizing an app through a controlled folder access device†
In the special menu that appears, click Add an authorized application† For example, depending on how you’ve used your PC, you can click Recently blocked appsto whitelist your applications that are blocked by the Windows security system.
If none of your software has been rejected by Windows yet, click Search all appsthen use Windows Explorer to navigate to the folder where your software is installed (usually in C:Programs True C:Programs (x86)†
If the anti-ransomware Windows tends to block your usual applications too often, adding them to the folders to protect should solve the problem.
Finally, keep in mind that in addition to activating Windows anti-ransomware protection, it is preferable to adopt a certain number of reflexes to guard against it†
