Online Backups and Ransomware

13th November 2019

Online backups are NOT a solution to Ransomware as the Ransomware can encrypt the backups the same way it encrypts all other files.

It is difficult to get your backup software to do 2FA as it requires human intervention. 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) means something other than a password, ie fingerprint, faceID, Time based token etc) to change any files.

Microsoft’s solution to Ransomware encrypting online backups is to have a static-ish locaton that requires 2 factor authentication (2FA). It is unclear how automated backups get to this static location, maybe after a set period of time.

More Info here

Wasabi’s solution is to have backups become immuteable (unchangeable) after a set period of time, without the 2FA option. I don’t think i have ever needed to change a historical backup.