Ransomware protection

[rtbcomp]

That's good. If it generates data is the data contained in the sandbox and do you have to do anything special to get it out? EG if I have a suspect app that generates say a csv file is it straightforward to read that file in Excel?

 

[bump]

In sandboxie you can right click on the sandbox and choose explore to examine the data. I often do this on a VM when I get a request for some new software to be installed in the office on the Win machines.

 

[Omniata]

I have been known to run XP or 7 in a VM within windows 10, save a checkpoint then run the new app, restoring the previous checkpoint when I'm done...

 

[skotl]

If you have to use windows, then run anything you are suspicious of in https://www.sandboxie.com/, as this only enables it to access what is in the sandbox rather than your machine at large.

Just bear in mind that many trojans / ransomware will deliberately lie dormant for several days, weeks or months.
So just because your sandbox doesn't catch fire in front of your eyes doesn't mean that anything that was run there is not dangerous.

 

[wookie]

It works fine for most people. Converted a few over using Ubuntu and Mint.

Shhhh..... If you tell everybody to use Linux then the idiots who write viruses, malware & ransomware will start targeting Linux instead of focusing on Windoze.

The single most effective way avoiding problems is to educate the user.

Linux is generally far more secure than other systems "out of the box" and can be locked down better than most of the competition but if the user doesn't know not to type "sudo rm -rf /*" in a terminal then there is nothing much you can do.

The flaw with anti-virus programs etc etc is that they are and always will be playing catchup with the virus writers.

 

[wookie]

Just bear in mind that many trojans / ransomware will deliberately lie dormant for several days, weeks or months.
So just because your sandbox doesn't catch fire in front of your eyes doesn't mean that anything that was run there is not dangerous.

I remember a story about a bunch of computer bods back in the 1960's or 70's whose mainframe computer got clobbered and all their backups going back well over a year were also infected because it took them that long to notice there was a problem.