Yes, ProVide protects against ransomware, but not by scanning for it. It protects by removing the network path most ransomware needs to spread in the first place.
Most ransomware that causes real damage doesn’t pick targets by hand. It’s a worm: it lands on one infected machine, scans the local network for shares it can write to, and encrypts every file it can reach. If your Windows file server exports a normal network share, one infected laptop on the same network can reach and encrypt that share within minutes, with no login involved at any point.
ProVide removes that path. When ProVide is the only way to reach your file storage, with no network share exported from the server itself, every request over FTP, FTPS, SFTP, WebDAV, or HTTPS must carry valid authentication first. A worm scanning the network finds nothing to attach to. There’s no share to mount and nothing to encrypt without a login, and self-propagating ransomware doesn’t have one.
This is why banks, government agencies, and other security-conscious organizations run ProVide this way: as a single, authenticated gateway in front of a server that never appears on the network as an open target.
What this doesn’t protect against #
Isolating the server from network shares stops self-propagating ransomware. It isn’t a guarantee against every scenario, and a few things deserve separate attention:
- A compromised ProVide account. If a login is phished, stolen, or brute-forced, whoever holds it can authenticate normally and encrypt anything that account can write to.
How to fix this: Turn on multi-factor authentication, (available from the Maxi license) ProVide supports authenticator apps such as Microsoft Authenticator, so a stolen password alone isn’t enough to log in. Combine this with scoping each account to only the folders it needs, so even a compromised login does limited damage. - A compromised host. If the server running ProVide is itself infected, through exposed remote access, an unpatched OS, or local malware, ransomware running on that machine reaches the disk directly, without going through ProVide’s authentication at all.
How to fix this: Patch and harden the host as you would any server holding sensitive data.
Pair this isolation with least-privilege permissions, multi-factor authentication, regular patching, and a tested backup strategy. Access isolation stops the spread; backups remain your recovery path if any single account or endpoint is compromised.
How does Gateway add another layer? #
For an extra layer on top of per-account authentication, ProVide’s Gateway reverse proxy sits in front of your file server as a dedicated, hardened entry point. It keeps your internal server address off the public network entirely, so even the authenticated endpoint isn’t a direct target. Combined with the isolation above, an attacker never sees your file server, only a proxy with nothing to encrypt.
