According to the report The State of Ransomware 2022 from the company Sophos, if in 2020 37% of companies were attacked by ransomware, in 2021 the figure increased to 66%. An important jump that, however, does not seem to reach the ceiling. The figure will reach 70% in 2022. With the aim of mitigating figures like these, Microsoft 365 Defender includes maximum protection by neutralizing ransomware attacks Although, for now, yes. only to business customers. Not yet to consumers.
This is what Microsoft has announced at the recent Microsoft Ignite conference where the technology giant has taken the opportunity to present some substantial improvements in its most important business applications. In this sense, Although Microsoft 365 Defender is not Windows Defender, it does include Microsoft Defender for Office 365although not in options like Office 365 Family or Personal, which are the most popular versions among consumers.
This enhanced protection for enterprises collects attack signals across endpoints, identities, emails, documents, and cloud applications into unified incidents. Also, uses signal amplitude to identify early attacks with a high level of confidence.
How Microsoft 365 Defender works
But then, why is it an option only available for companies? According to Microsoft, consumers do not produce enough signals for Microsoft to transfer this capability to Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Family or Personal. Also, “These types of attacks usually target organizations”, states the company.
Microsoft 365 Defender helps prevent ransomware from spreading laterally, reducing the overall cost of an attack while improves the capacity and resilience of a company to recover.
Nevertheless, if a person has Windows Defender on a personal device, they can also defend against ransomware. Just go to the Windows 10/11 Settings menu, type “ransomware protection” in the search field. This will open Windows Security and the “Ransomware Protection” section. Here, there is the option to turn on “controlled folder access”, preventing access to files and folders by “hostile apps”.
I also know can set up OneDrive from the same page to help protect and restore files on an infected PC.
