Bitdefender 2017 free ransomware protection
- #BITDEFENDER 2017 FREE RANSOMWARE PROTECTION INSTALL#
- #BITDEFENDER 2017 FREE RANSOMWARE PROTECTION PC#
- #BITDEFENDER 2017 FREE RANSOMWARE PROTECTION FREE#
#BITDEFENDER 2017 FREE RANSOMWARE PROTECTION FREE#
At the very least, combine this product with a full-scale antivirus, or with a free behavior-based ransomware protection tool such as Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware or Cybereason RansomFree.Įven if you choose to pay a little for our Editors' Choice, Check Point ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware, you still need protection against other types of malware. However, outside of that known collection, it does nothing, so you can't use it alone.
#BITDEFENDER 2017 FREE RANSOMWARE PROTECTION PC#
For specific, known ransomware families, it makes your PC look like it's already infected. One Layer of Protectionīitdefender Anti-Ransomware's vaccination technique cleverly subverts ransomware's need to avoid double infection. And in testing it both detected all the samples and completely reversed their actions, leaving no files encrypted. At $1.99 per month, Check Point ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware isn't expensive. From my experience thus far, you get better ransomware protection if you're willing to pay a little. Malwarebytes and RansomFree are both free products. In each case, the ransomware silently encrypted important files and then displayed its ransom demand. Of course, matters were quite different when I released another three samples, ransomware threats from families not included in this product's vaccination. I don't have a Petya sample, but my experience with the other three ransomware families demonstrates that Bitdefender Anti-Ransomware does indeed prevent attacks by those families. It launched, ran for a while, and terminated, with no damage to the test system. The same thing happened with my sample from the Locky ransomware family.
It, too, launched, ran for a while, and then exited, without encrypting any files.
My BTC-Locker sample also pretends to be something legitimate, though it doesn't bother with using a random-named secondary program. With Bitdefender active, I saw the secondary program appear, launch, and quit-without doing any dirty deeds.
That secondary program proceeds to encrypt your documents, and then displays its ransomware demand. The sample I use pretends to be a legitimate, digitally signed utility, but its installer drops a random-named malware executable in the Documents folder. The TeslaCrypt ransomware behaves in a predictable fashion. The product did exactly what it promised to do. With Bitdefender Anti-Ransomware on the job, I released my collection of real-world ransomware samples one by one, in an isolated virtual machine. For those tougher cases, an always-on background process is necessary. My contact at Bitdefender explained the mere presence of a static file isn't sufficient to convince some ransomware families that the system is already infected. I was a bit surprised to find that it launches at startup and keeps running in the background. Initially, I had the impression that users would run the utility once and be done with it.
#BITDEFENDER 2017 FREE RANSOMWARE PROTECTION INSTALL#
Download it, install it, and you're done. Unlike many free antivirus utilities, there's no restriction against using it in a commercial setting. This product is a free download, and you can use it on any PC at all. Getting Started with Bitdefender Anti-Ransomware For defense against any other encrypting ransomware attack, you'll need a full-blown ransomware protection utility. It specifically works on TeslaCrypt, BTC-Locker, Locky, and the first version of Petya. (Sorry, folks: Petya's current version isn't so easily defeated.)īitdefender Anti-Ransomware uses a variety of techniques to convince specific families of ransomware that your PC is already infected, thereby deflecting their attacks. The first round of infestation by the recent Petya ransomware simply checked for the presence of a certain file, and called off its attack if that file was present. Such a double whammy might make it impossible to decrypt files, even if the victim coughed up the ransom. The key to this technique lies in the fact that the cybercrooks who inflict ransomware on the world don't want it to infect the same PC twice. It isn't even remotely a general-purpose antivirus tool, but it does exactly what it promises to do. This free product offers protection against attack by a very specific collection of ransomware families.
Bitdefender Anti-Ransomware uses a similar technique to keep your PCs safe from ransomware infection-similar enough that the company calls it ransomware vaccination. Smallpox killed many hundreds of thousands before Edward Jenner worked out a technique for vaccination, a treatment that mimicked the effects of having already suffered and recovered from the disease.