Given the choice between a confirmation pop up every time you zip numerous files simultaneously or add encryption to a folder or being infected with ransomware; which would you choose?  Researchers at the University of Florida and Villanova University have developed software called CryptoLock which scans your systems for bulk modification of file types, a significant change in the contents of those files and an increase in the Shannon Entropy of the files.  All three of those indicate a file is being encrypted and if it is happening to numerous ones in a very short period of time then the software will put a halt to it until you confirm that this is expected behaviour.  You get a quick overview over at The Register as well as a link to the PDF of the researchers work.

Sounds like a pop up we can live with, considering the alternative.  Hopefully this will arrive on the market soon.

"Taking a “save what you can” approach, the authors of this PDF reckon in their tests they were able to lower the boom on ransomware when it had encrypted just 0.2 per cent of files on their test setup."

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