App Review Acronis AntiRansomware version 1

[cruelsister]

Notes:

1). There was a new build released after I made this video. This new version no longer uses Apple Bonjour. Also, I verified that the protection of the new version (or lack of) is identical with the version I used. As I had neither the time nor the desire to re-do this video, please understand...

2). At 5:25 of the video there were a number of files that were encrypted and not resolved. All of these were relics from Santana and are trivial. I left it in the video as a demonstration of what would happen to newer legitimate files you may have created.

 

[FrFc1908]

Thanks fpr another great demo sis! at the 3.22 mark is that your cat? she is nice looking white and blue eyes.....never saw that before!

 

[cruelsister]

That's Ophelia. Had to look around for slippers to match her eyes.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Can you test eset ransomware protection?@cruelsister

 

[dinosaur07]

Thanks a lot for the video @cruelsister. I don`t know much about the expertise of Acronis but i know that with Macrium i feel safe.

 

[Windows_Security]

Ahh Shine on your crazy diamond, dear lady you made me decide to change the music for my Saturday morning jog, Thanks

 

[Peter2150]

Thanks for the video CS. No surprise. Although I've never had a failure with True Image, they have junked it up with to much garbage. I don't like the fact that it's AR allows files to be messed with. No way for me.

 

[cruelsister]

There is an essentially bare bones version of TI that is free as long as you have either a Western Digital or Seagate HD installed on your system. Only the basics.

But Acronis really should stop malware from trashing images. Macrium has done this- but sadly only for the Paid versions. The free version will allow malicious encryption of mrimg files.

 

[dinosaur07]

@cruelsis: I have Macrium paid and I would like to test it's antiransomware protection but I don't want to mess with that volunteerly so I will wait for your test. I think you can do the test on the trial version of Macrium Home or that wouldn't be possible? Thanks,

 

[cruelsister]

Dino- The Paid version of Macrium does indeed prevent anything manipulating either the image (mrimg) file or the backup (mrbak) file created by MR. I tried to screw them over and failed miserably. However the Free version is indeed prone to having these files encrypted- but this is not an issue as long as the files are stored on a removable drive that is actually just connected during image/backup and removed right after (this is Best Practice anyway).

 

[dinosaur07]

Dino- The Paid version of Macrium does indeed prevent anything manipulating either the image (mrimg) file or the backup (mrbak) file created by MR. I tried to screw them over and failed miserably. However the Free version is indeed prone to having these files encrypted- but this is not an issue as long as the files are stored on a removable drive that is actually just connected during image/backup and removed right after (this is Best Practice anyway).

Thanks, sis, I`ve always known that Macrium Home or Workstation is the best, the safest and the most reliable backup solution.

 

[Lightning_Brian]

@cruelsister Thanks for this nice review. I can concur your latest tests and results. Personally, I would not be using Acronis Antiransomware any time soon...

While Acronis True Image may be nice software this 'free' antiransomware isn't good/great at all. We just tried this out at my company as a 'beta' test of the software as it was recently released. We aren't going to be trusting it any time soon. Unless there is a massive (and I mean massive) change to this software we are going to be sticking to other methods of further locking everything down.

Hats off for the very nice and detailed review! This is greatly apprecated as I have shown this to a few of my co-workers telling them that 'Hey, we aren't the only ones getting super bad results.' They nodded and concurred that our current software and best practices will remain in tact without any changes.

~Brian

 

[codswollip]

From the amazingly fine video...

So to conclude, until they can plug the holes demonstrated in this video I don’t suggest you use this product.

All of this aside, am I the only one leery of uploading my valued ("Put your most important files out of harm’s way" —Acronis) files to the Acronis honeypot ... err... cloud?

 

[Lightning_Brian]

From the amazingly fine video...

All of this aside, am I the only one leery of uploading my valued ("Put your most important files out of harm’s way" —Acronis) files to the Acronis honeypot ... err... cloud?

@Telos Nope! Your not the only one. Thats why I encrypt everything I use and store it on my own home server/RAID client that I own. Wouldn't trust them at all. At least not any time soon. Acronis True Image is nice software, but this 'free' antiransomware stuff is kinda....Well I will say it JUNK - as of right now. Not good...

Your not alone Telos.

~Brian

 

[dinosaur07]

@Telos Nope! Your not the only one. Thats why I encrypt everything I use and store it on my own home server/RAID client that I own. Wouldn't trust them at all. At least not any time soon. Acronis True Image is nice software, but this 'free' antiransomware stuff is kinda....Well I will say it JUNK - as of right now. Not good...

Your not alone Telos.

~Brian

Very good behavior, nothing should go in the cloud unencrypted if we want to stay safe till the end.

 

[cruelsister]

Telos- I suppose Acronis is attempting to squeak out a few bucks hoping that folks will want more than 5 gig. And quite frankly it is not very reassuring when an anti-malware application suggests backing things up somewhere- the base assumption here would be they know your stuff is prone to be trashed.

I also think uploading anything close to personal data to a nameless Cloud is insane; and as far as work related data is concerned that is even worse (my former employer had a gentle reminder not to engage in this practice -"Upload to a Cloud and we will shoot you and no one will ever find your body").

 

[Lightning_Brian]

Telos- I suppose Acronis is attempting to squeak out a few bucks hoping that folks will want more than 5 gig. And quite frankly it is not very reassuring when an anti-malware application suggests backing things up somewhere- the base assumption here would be they know your stuff is prone to be trashed.

I also think uploading anything close to personal data to a nameless Cloud is insane; and as far as work related data is concerned that is even worse (my former employer had a gentle reminder not to engage in this practice -"Upload to a Cloud and we will shoot you and no one will ever find your body").

@cruelsister Couldn't agree more! At my place of employment nothing can be stored on the cloud without IT's permission or complete control. Everything must be encrypted beyond AES...Yes, we go above and beyond the typical encryption levels for our security. Not that we have anything to hide, but we value our security of our documents and its on a need to know basis.

I will admit nothing leaves my computer without heavy encryption. I will admit even further that my entire hard drive is encrypted above the typical usage.

~Brian

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

Uploading to the cloud is pretty safe, I store lots of stuff in the cloud.

But then again I move 256AES+TwoFish Encrypted blobs over SSL/443 to a zero knowledge provider on servers that encrypt at-rest with 2048 bit RSA encryption, 256 bit AES GCM, PBKDF2 key stretching with a high iteration. It'll be a few billion years before anyone can see what's in my cloud drive, or sooner with QC but still, cloud is fine.. Assuming.

 

[codswollip]

Uploading to the cloud is pretty safe, I store lots of stuff in the cloud.

But then again I move 256AES+TwoFish Encrypted blobs over SSL/443 to a zero knowledge provider on servers that encrypt at-rest with 2048 bit RSA encryption, 256 bit AES GCM, PBKDF2 key stretching with a high iteration. It'll be a few billion years before anyone can see what's in my cloud drive, or sooner with QC but still, cloud is fine.. Assuming.

Where I want offsite (cloud) backup, I use 256AES encryption for files...additionally I encrypt folder/file names. For the most part I backup via personal NAS.

There's just not enough info on Acronis, plus as CS mentioned, 5GB is hardly sufficient

 

[cruelsister]

Sly- Secret knowledge here: it would be a way lot quicker than a few billion years...