I am thinking of a backup plan for fast recovery scenario for my windows Azure hosted VM's. My plan is to create a backup disk that is attached to my VM and using Windows Server Backup I create a backup on that disk using Windows Server Backup.
I assume this disk is normally not safe against ransomware, but is this also the case if I select this backup disk as a dedicated disk in the Windows Server Backup wizard? Because then the disk won't be visible in file explorer anymore either, so not reachable by the malware?
Secondly, I want to create a second backupset using Azure Recovery Vault. If I connect my VM via the azure-backup-agent to the vault, would my vault-stored -data be vulnarable to ransomware attacks? Thanks!
The general rule with ransomeware is that anything attached to the VM is valuable to being infected. So this would include all public and private drives. The best way to be prepared for ransomeware is to keep all your VMs up to date with the latest KBs, install proper antivirus and anti-malware software and make use of Azures NSGs.
Using Azure Backup/ Site Recovery would be the simplest way to ensure you are protected in the event of an attack. This would ensure you have multiple backup points to which you can restore to. The data in the backup vault would not be vulnerable to the ransomeware if the VM itself was infected. If the backup ran after the ransomeware was on the machine you could still have a backup copy that was infected but in this case you would simply go back to a further backup date and restore from there.