Microsoft has built-in protection that prevents any suspicious application from modifying protected files. Here is how to activate and configure this new feature.
With Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Microsoft is now offering ransomware protection known as the Controlled Folder Access Device. Its operating principle is quite simple: any suspicious application will be blocked by default in writing to a set of files to be protected. This means that ransomware that has managed to find its way into your system will not be able to sneak in the files that are important to you.
To benefit from this function, you have to dig into the Windows settings.
- See you in “Settings -> Update & Security -> Windows Defender” and open it “Windows Defender Security Center”.
- Then go to the section “Protection against viruses and threats” and click on “Virus and Threat Protection Settings”.
- You then come across a page with a multitude of options in which you must activate the famous “Controlled file access device”.
Two types of settings are then possible.
- The first: the files to be protected. By default, Windows protects system folders and user-related folders: Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music, etc. In most cases, this should be enough. Otherwise, it is possible to define others, by clicking on “Add a protected folder”.
- Second setting: the applications to be authorized. This whitelist contains by default all Microsoft applications, as well as those that the publisher deems trustworthy. These, by the way, do not appear and therefore cannot be removed from the list. The day when an application you are using is blocked, all you have to do is go to this menu, click on “Add an authorized application” and select the corresponding executable. This is usually located in the “Program Files (x86)” folder at the root of drive C.
- When an application is blocked, it cannot create or modify files in protected folders. Such an action generates a more or less understandable error alert, as well as a message in the notification center (located at the bottom right). So you will be warned.
