Of all the different types of malware, the ransomware is perhaps the worst. It is the beginning of a nightmare if your PC gets infected with one of the ransomware like Cryptolocker, TeslaCrypt, Zepto and others. They encrypt the documents on your PC using very strong ciphers and then demand you to pay them some ransom money before they send you instructions about how you can decrypt your files. One of the time tested methods of protection against ransomware is to keep regular backups of your files, but you should also try to prevent malware infection altogether using a good antivirus software. In addition, the use of other third party utilities like SBGuard or McAfree Stinger may help in detecting some other malware that managed to skipp detection somehow.
SBGuard is neither a real-time monitoring utility, nor a malware scanner tool. It is actually a tool to modify certain settings in the Windows operating system to make it a little difficult for the ransomware to propagate and work its way through different files present on your system.
After the installation, when you launch SBGuard, it presents you with two buttons which allow you to enable or disable the protection. When you click on the Enable Protection button, it adds over 700 different entries in the Windows Registry which enable some of the Windows Group Policy settings. Moreover, it disables Windows gadgets and some of the features that ransomware use to encrypt your data. The protection status switched from red to green when it is enabled. You have to restart your PC in order for the changes to take effect.
Because of all the strict group policy settings, SBGuard can make it a little difficult for you to install new software in your PC. If you are not able to install safe or legitimate software in your PC, then you have to first disable the protection, restart the PC and then attempt installing the software once again.
Conclusion: SBGuard depends on the group policies settings in Windows to block some of the known ransomware. However, it may miss some of the new ransomware and you should not depend on it alone for protection from ransomware. You must install a regular antivirus software for full protection from malware.
You can download SBGuard Anti-Ransomware from http://www.sydneybackups.com.au/sbguard-anti-ransomware/.