The purpose of installing an antivirus or security program on your computer is to secure your stored data from security threats, but how can we make sure that it does its job as intended? The program here is not like a surveillance camera that we wave in the face of its lens to see whether it is working or not. Rather, it must be exposed to different types of “fake” viruses to see how it interacts with them and thus evaluate its efficiency. It is somewhat similar to “Corona vaccines”, whose components are the genetic code of the virus, to prompt the immune system to respond as much as possible.
And because ransomware is the most prevalent and sophisticated nowadays, it is important to rest assured that your data is well secured against this type of security threat so that if you rely on security software as a main shield to protect this data, its ability to confront ransomware should be tested in various ways. their forms. how? It's very simple thanks to a great tool called "RanSim". Let's show how to use it.
The tool is very reliable and poses no risk of any kind, RanSim is developed by KnowBe4 which is a well-known company that aims to provide security awareness to help manage IT security issues of social engineering, phishing and ransomware attacks. The company is also headed by one of the biggest hackers in the world: Kevin Mitnick so it's definitely a tool to try!
Now all you have to do is launch the tool and then click on the “Check Now” button to start testing the various scenarios shown in front of you under the “Scenarios” menu where the tool lists the description of each scenario and what it does exactly. So far, RanSim simulates 23 ransomware viruses and the list is constantly updated every once in a while.
After the end of the entire test, the results will be presented in an organized and concise manner, as shown in the attached image. You can easily find out the number of scenarios out of 23 that the antivirus failed to deal with under the "VULNERABLE" section. The number of scenarios that the program has proven to be able to address will appear in the "NOT VULNERABLE" section, and therefore if your device is exposed to ransomware simulated in those scenarios, your data will not be affected in any way.
For the "INCORRECTLY BLOCKED" part, it must be 0/2 as this confirms that the test is correct and that all scenarios have been fairly validated and therefore the final result shown to you can be trusted. But if it is 1/2 or 2/2, this loses the credibility of the final result because the protection program was not able to differentiate between the processes that pose a risk to data and the ones that do not cause damage, and therefore it blocked all the processes running by the RanSim tool.
Note in the test result there is a graph showing the number of files that would have been at risk if an actual ransomware attack had taken place on your device. As shown in our tests, there are more than 1,600 files at risk even with an antivirus.
As mentioned above, RanSim allows you to add real files of your choice to the testing environment to see how ransomware affects them. If you want to experiment, click on the "Click Here" button above and drag the files to the Open window that appears in front of you. Then click on the "Check Now" button to take the test again.
Of course, the results of the RanSim tool will differ from one device to another depending on the security program used. In our test for the purpose of this explanation, we relied on the pre-installed Windows Security program on Windows 11, and the result was expected compared to more advanced programs in the field of antivirus such as Avast, Avira and Acronis.
However, we don't claim that Windows Security is too bad but still reliable as it contains a feature designed specifically for ransomware called Controlled Folder Access which we explained before how to activate and use it. When we enable the feature to secure a small set of files that are used in RanSim tests, it has been shown to be effective against ransomware scenarios that specifically target these files.
Overall, RanSim is very useful for giving you an idea of the security software's ability so you can take steps to improve your device's security level to secure your files and reduce the risk of your device falling victim to a ransomware attack.