Thread by @BleepinComputer

We played with Windows 10 Controlled Folder Access today. Great tool & recommend it to to protect your folders. 1/X
bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft…

The only caveat is that you need real-time protection enabled in Windows Defender in order for Controlled Folder Access to work. 2/X

If you have another AV program, you may be concerned about conflicts. I say give it a try and see how it works for you. You may be fine. 3/X

Windows Defender may get a lot abuse, but it did a terrific job detecting every ransomware I tried to test CFA against. 4/X

To the point that it became a PITA while testing, so I excluded my sample folder in Defender to test CFA against the ransomware samples. 5/X

This led to a prob. While folders are protected from programs running from an excluded folder, Windows will not display blocking alerts. 6/X

Ultimately, while CFA is a great tool to protect folders from unwanted access, it won't kill ransomware that access those folders. 7/X

This means, that unprotected folders will still be encrypted, ransom notes will be displayed, and other unwanted behavior may occur. 8/X

For this reason, Controlled Folder Access should not be considered a full-fledged Anti-Ransomware solution. 9/X

Ultimately, CFA is designed to protect your SPECIFIED data & it does what it's supposed to do. Due to this, it's strongly recommended 10/10