Disk Encryption Could Thwart Ransomware?

This is just an "idle curiosity" type of idea. I'm not suggesting that this is an appropriate anti-malware strategy (although, as far as I know, it might be an added layer of security).

But if you encrypted your entire disk, do you think that that could that thwart ransomware?

 

Use a program like CryptoPrevent instead: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/cryptoprevent.html

 

Thanks very much for the tip, MaxTurner. Could anybody who has used CryptoPrevent please share their thoughts on it with us?

 

I apologize for posting this question twice. I asked it in my thread " Disk Encryption Could Thwart Ransomware?", but it now seems to me that it should have its own thread.

Anyway, could anybody who has used CryptoPrevent please share their opinion / thoughts about it?

 

I use it on 3 systems, it installs easily and it works.

 

Hey Skull. I use it on 8.1 and never know it's there. I've never been encrypted -guess that's the right term- but I also don't know if it's ever been attempted! I do go to a ton of places on the web though and haven't been hit. Maybe someone else knows if it would alert you if an attempt has been made.

 

Thanks to all. And I'm really glad you posted, LauraR, for a minute there I thought I had worked too many hours and posted "this really ought to have its own thread" in a thread I was already posting in.

 

Best protection, besides backups is learning what not to click on. Last place I worked at, we got hit by 2 instances of cryptowall, with protection, we still got hit. But, with good backups and shadowcopy, we got back to running conditions quite quickly.

 

Hi thefool -

I didn't know about shadow copy.

OK, I went into
Start > Services > Volume Shadow Copy Properties > General
and discovered Startup type was set to Manual (not Automatic)

Then I went into
Start > Services > Volume Shadow Copy Properties > Recovery
and saw that all failures were set to Take No Action. I guess this refers to failures of specific services, no?

Then I went into
Control Panel > System Properties > System Protection > Create
and created a restore point "First manually created restore point"

Then I went into
Control Panel > Recovery > Open System Restore > Choose a different restore point (System Restore)
and found the following descriptions / types of restore points:
First manually created restore point / Manual
Windows Update / Install
Automatic Restore Point / System
Windows Update / Critical Update

Anyway:

Would there be any advantage to setting
Volume Shadow Copy Properties > General > Startup type
to Automatic?

And how could I decide what action would be appropriate to take in the advent of "failures" in
VSS > Recovery?

 

Which version of OS do you have? Just note, that Shadow Copy consumes hdd space. It is not a good method of backup, but it is a backup in case you need something restored quickly or faster than regular restores.

 

I currently have Win7, but as soon as I free up enough disk space (hopefully tonight), I'll do a backup and then upgrade to Win10.

But then ASAP (hopefully tomorrow), I'm gonna follow peterr's advice (see my thread "Recommend A Cloud Storage Service?", post #13) and buy an external drive.

Anyway, I still have a couple questions about Volume Shadow Copy Properties from my post #10 in this thread. And speaking of that post, would it save much disk space for me to delete a couple of restore points in System Restore?