Your Panda product Anti-Ransomware protection provides an additional layer of security against malware that tries to access your sensitive data with malicious purposes (theft, deletion, or encryption). A well-known example of this type of malware is CryptoLocker. This ransomware encrypts user data and demands a ransom for it. It encrypts data by using a different private key on each PC. This key is stored on the malware’s command and control servers, preventing data recovery even if the malware is disinfected and removed from the PC.
Anti-Ransomware protection enables you to select the folders you want to protect and the access permissions of installed programs. To do this, the first time you open the program, a message appears that enables you to enable Data Shield.
To enable Data Shield:
In the main window of the program, click Anti-Ransomware.
A window opens. Select the protections you want to enable: Data Shield, Decoy Files, and Shadow Copies. After you enable them, click Settings to configure their options.
To set the folders you want to protect and configure Data Shield, click Settings and set these values:
Data to protect: The My documents folder is included by default. You can add other folders or remove them from the list by clicking Add or Delete.
Protect only files with the following extensions: By default, Data Shield protects your Office documents, images, and audio and video files. You can also customize which file extensions you want to protect.
Allowed and denied applications: You can define which programs can access the types of files you specified.
Allow safe applications to access protected data: This option is enabled by default. It grants access permissions to the specified files for all applications that Panda considers safe.
Additionally, you can set the action you want the product to take when an unknown application tries to access sensitive data: Deny or Ask me.