Ransomware can wreak havoc on both personal and business computers, recently affecting Irish health services. We didn’t know that there’s a simple feature built into Windows 10 that helps protect the best gaming PCs, but as Forbes points out, you need to activate it yourself for some reason.
It’s as simple as looking for “ransomware protection” in the Start menu and checking the box for “controlled folder access,” which doesn’t seem to be enabled by default as you might expect. It is described as a feature that prevents “hostile applications” from making changes to your files, folders, and memory.
Tests on the PC Security Channel YouTube channel show that it does a very good job of stopping ransomware in its tracks. You shouldn’t rely too heavily on it, as some malicious programs have managed to overcome legal loopholes, and we recommend that you take additional measures, such as making sure you don’t open questionable email attachments or download files from unknown sources, but it is largely a fast, easy and free way to increase the protection of your PC.
Like Windows Defender, you may have trouble playing the best PC games, which is part of the reason Microsoft didn’t enable it from the start. However, there is an option to exclude any games or programs that do not work well with protection, so it is worth enabling this feature as it could save your bacon in the future.