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Forum Discussion
Is Dropbox a safe haven from ransomware?
1) If my local computer and presumably my local network drive were to be encrypted by a ransomware attack, would my Dropbox files also be encrypted? 2) Or is Dropbox a safe place place for my file...
My computer is a Mac. It's immune from ransomeware.
No, it's not.
Hi Rich R.
Thank you for pointing that out. Your point is well very well taken and none of us can afford to be complacent. But in this particular case I don't believe your observation applies .
1. The files in my Dbox folder were all changed in February of 2015, a year before any reported Mac incidents.
2. Only the files in my Dbox folder were affected. This infection did not originate on my Mac. If it had the whole machine would have been borked.
3. I run Sophos antivirus on my Mac because I'm not quite that complacent. I do understand that winter is coming, the night is dark and full of terrors and Macs are no longer as secure as they once were. The advice on the Sophos site about ransomeware includes:
"Here’s what the crooks and their malware do:
If I'd been fooled and clicked on a Mac-capable version of the software my entire machine would be bricked and I'd have gotten a message to pay to have them restored. I'm not a crypto or coding expert, but it seems to me the only way this could have happened is through a malware attack on Dbox's servers that corrupted my files there and, since they were newer, were then over-written in my local Dbox folder.