Ransomware is one of the latest threats to affect business users. It's an easy way of extracting money from a company or individual. Start the day with your important files encrypted and your average user will pay the ransom as time wasted trying to get professional help will often cost more than the ransom.

Of course, the most obvious solution would be to keep the latest security software installed on your computer, but not every suite is designed to protect you against ransomware and most recovery tools may not be able to roll your computer back to a previous state.

We'd always advise backing up your system. It's by far-and-away the easiest way to recover your data. If you make regular daily incremental backups, using a tool such as Acronis True Image or O&O DiskImage Professional, if you suffer from system loss or a ransomware demand, you can simply boot into their recovery disc and restore a system backup.

Another option is to install a free tool to protect you against ransomware, such as Acronis Ransomware Protection. This doesn't check every file, so shouldn't slow your computer. It will also sit alongside your existing security suite. The tool will monitor system processes and determine whether something is doing something it shouldn't and will temporarily block the process until you authorise the process to continue.

Whilst you use your PC, you'll be warned of suspicious behaviour. Sadly though, we noticed it picked up random tools which check your system for updates, but you can choose to "Trust" these applications (or processes) which will prevent false positives.

Acronis Ransomware Protection also offers 5GB of cloud storage which is linked to your Acronis account. This isn't enough to backup your system but should be enough space to store your most important files.

What's new in build 1700 (see changelog for more)?

- Issue fixes and other improvements