Microsoft's Onedrive Now Has Your Back in a Ransomware Attack

Imagine logging into your computer in preparation for an important day of work, and you’re greeted with a notice that none of your files are accessible. They’re there, only locked away in strong encryption unless you pay some faraway stranger real money for the key needed decrypt them. That’s ransomware, and Microsoft is building anti-ransomware functionality into its OneDrive cloud storage solution that can help mitigate the damage.

The news comes via Microsoft’s Office blog, and it refers to a pair of features that were first introduced for OneDrive for Business and that the company is now pushing to anyone who’s signed up for an Office 365 Home or Personal subscription. The features work together to help users recover their files in the event of a ransomware attack.

First, there is ransomware detection and recovery. This feature monitors OneDrive looking for signs of a ransomware attack and then inform the user via email, mobile, or desktop notifications. Then, users are guided through a recovery process using the second feature, Files Restore.

Files Restore is a feature that allows users to restore an entire OneDrive repository to a time prior to a ransomware attack, up to 30 days before. The feature can be used to recover from a number of catastrophic events in addition to ransomware, including accidental mass deletions, file corruption, or other incidents. That means that no matter the cause, users can recover all of their OneDrive files and return to a workable state relatively quickly and easily.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-rolls-out-onedrive-files-restore-to-all-office-365-users/