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Forum Discussion
do snapshots offer protection against cryptolocker malware
I have a couple of older readynas units, an Ultra 6+ which is my "active" device, and an NV+ which backs it up using rsync, as well as some USB external drives. I have pretty good redundant backup against hardware failures, and my really critical data is backed-up to blu-ray disks I store off-site.
Though I am comfortable in my precautions against a hardware failure, my non-optical-media backups would be vulnerable to a cryptolocker type piece of malware, since all my (write accessible) files would be overwritten, and the bad files would propagate through my backup devices. (I have a staggered backup schedule, but this too is imperfect protection)
So.....
How do the unlimited snapshots available on the newer readynas devices work? If I have a OS 6 readynas, and say set the disk quotas on the active shares to maybe a third my disk capacity (to keep lots of space available for snapshots), would this offer protection against ransomware like cryptolocker, since presumably I'd have backup snapshots with good copies of my files? Are the snapshots made automatically, and kept until the system runs out of diskspace, at which point the snapshot data is erased on an oldest-first basis?
Though I am comfortable in my precautions against a hardware failure, my non-optical-media backups would be vulnerable to a cryptolocker type piece of malware, since all my (write accessible) files would be overwritten, and the bad files would propagate through my backup devices. (I have a staggered backup schedule, but this too is imperfect protection)
So.....
How do the unlimited snapshots available on the newer readynas devices work? If I have a OS 6 readynas, and say set the disk quotas on the active shares to maybe a third my disk capacity (to keep lots of space available for snapshots), would this offer protection against ransomware like cryptolocker, since presumably I'd have backup snapshots with good copies of my files? Are the snapshots made automatically, and kept until the system runs out of diskspace, at which point the snapshot data is erased on an oldest-first basis?
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- In the specific case of cryptolocker, it only hijacks drives and network drives. So you should be safe if you don't map your NAS shares to drive letters. It is also wise to disable java in your web browsers.
As far as OS 6 goes, when a snapshot is taken, the snapshot and the main folder share all the files (e.g., there is only one copy of each file). As files are updated, the snapshot keeps the old version, and the updates go in the main folder. My guess is that this would provide some additional protection against cryptolocker, assuming that the files are re-written by the ransomware as it encypts them.
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