Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Neutralizes Ransomware With ‘Controlled Folders’

Given the recent outbreaks of WannaCry and Petya ransomware, it’s refreshing that Microsoft is introducing a feature to help protect your apps and data files from malware attacks. Microsoft calls the feature “Controlled Folder Access”, and it can be enabled from within the Windows Defender Security Center.

Once enabled, Controlled Folder Access is able to monitor changes that occur within specified (by Microsoft) folders or your own user-selected folder locations. If the operating system detects that attempts are being made to modify files within these folders, you will receive a notification about the intrusion. Network shares and mapped drives are also supported by Controlled Folder Access. This is just a the latest in a long line of defenses that Windows 10 has built-in to ward off viruses and ransomware attacks.

The next update comes in the form of an enhancement to the Windows Defender Application Guard when running Microsoft Edge. With Build 16232, Microsoft allows your browser data to remain available across Microsoft Edge sessions. Windows Defender Application Guard works in a virtualized environment, allowing you to run a Microsoft Edge browsing session that is isolated from the rest of the operating system.

Rather than your browsing data being flushed when you close out an Edge session while using the Windows Defender Application Guard, Build 16232 allows you to retain “data such as your favorites, cookies, and saved passwords will be persisted across Application Guard sessions,” says Microsoft’s Dona Sarkar. “The persisted data will be not be shared or surfaced on the host, but it will be available for future Microsoft Edge in Application Guard sessions.”

For a list of all of the latest change, update, fixes and issues with Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16232, check out Microsoft’s blog post.