Ransomware

Ciccio, the answer to your question is yes - all of your drives are vulnerable if any of these drives are connected to your system when ransomware is active on that system, this can also apply to mapped network drives too.

The only effective precaution against ransomware or other forms of malware (virus, trojan, encryption, spyware etc) is to have backup files kept completely isolated from your system and to update these isolated files by using the offline Acronis bootable Rescue Media so that the backups are performed completely outside of Windows and not affected by any malware that hides at a very low level in the Windows architecture.

I have TrueImage 2016 - I have made 3 copies during the year of the total drive to a W/D Mybook external drive as well as a Seagate External drive. Is it possible to erase the previous saves and begin saving anew, right now, to save space on the drives?

Truett, your question is off topic for this particular thread and you should click on the New topic button when wanting to introduce a new topic.

If you are wanting to delete old backup images then you can do this using Windows Explorer but you should then do a Validation for the backup task(s) that created those backup images so that the Acronis Database records are reconciled for the files that still remain on your external drives.  Validation will present pop-up messages for each deleted image file that you should answer by taking the Ignore option.

With Acronis True Image 2020, I am doing daily disk-level backups to a connected external drive, and have selected the Replicate option.

In case of ransomware, because of the Replicate being on the web I should be able to do a complete restore as of the previous day.  Right?  

This provides complete safety from ransomware -- I hope!

      ...Art Lieberman...

Art L wrote:

With Acronis True Image 2020, I am doing daily disk-level backups to a connected external drive, and have selected the Replicate option.

In case of ransomware, because of the Replicate being on the web I should be able to do a complete restore as of the previous day.  Right?  

This provides complete safety from ransomware -- I hope!

      ...Art Lieberman...

Art, having any degree of separation for your backups is going to give you better protection from ransomware and other malware, but I would not go as far as to say this will provide complete safety, as that is to underestimate the skills of the people behind such malware - especially given how this is often from organised crime or state sponsored sources!

The only true guarantee of best protection is to have multiple backups, in multiple places and with some completely disconnected from any electronic access.

Engaging in 'safe computing practises' is also an important factor! 
Always keep your OS fully up to date with all security fixes.
Install updates for your applications, especially those dealing with security, i.e. firewall, antivirus, antimalware etc.

Don't click on links in emails or web pages unless 100% sure of what they are etc.
Don't open attachments from emails or web pages .....

If in doubt, use a Sandbox type application for testing links / attachments or run a virtual machine copy of the OS (or another OS such as a Linux Live distro).

The media regularly has stories of some very intelligent people who have fallen victim to scammers who have fooled them into doing something that should have rang alarm bells but was so convincing it didn't!  Ransomware is just another form of this!

For this I have a simple solution, but you need a NAS.

Set up the job as usual and save it to your Linux-Network-drive using a share, your can't change as your normal user logged in. Only True Image knows the user/password able to change your tib-data. Those ransomware hackers surely don't know how to get to Acronis's saved passwords.