Microsoft Sandbox – addressing the fear of the unknown

by judy edwards Customer Success Manager

How many times have you downloaded a file but too afraid to open it? Well, we all have been in the situation where we are too scared to download something without knowing if its virus approved or can harm our devices.

What’s a Sandbox?

Microsoft heard our silent prayers and created a masterpiece for everyone to download anything without hesitation. They developed “Windows Sandbox”, no its not a box with sand but an isolated, temporary, desktop environment where you can run untrusted software’s without the fear of lasting impact to you PC, awesome right?

The best part about the Sandbox security feature is that anything installed in the Windows Sandbox will remain in the Sandbox and cannot affect your host. Once you close the Windows Sandbox, all the potential threats are tested in this environment without us having to fear about any threats.

Windows Sandbox have some features:

1- Sandboxie: is a Windows program that creates sandboxes for Windows applications. It creates virtual environment for software’s preventing them to make changes to your PC. The good thing about the application is its lightweight and free.

2- Wipe off: Every time Sandbox is running, it wipes off everything as if brand new Windows is installed.

3- Nothing is saved: Everything is discarded from Sandbox after you close the application.

4- Secure: Sandbox environment restrict programs that can cause harm to your PC, so basically download freely.

What is Sandboxed for protection?

1- Web pages: Whatever you browse in the Sandbox mode the web pages load which means JavaScript code can do anything it want, but the request fails to access your computer.

2- Mobile Apps: Mobile platforms run their apps in sandbox too, but iOS, Android and Windows 8 are restricted from doing many of the things standard desktop applications can do.

3- PDFs: Adobe Reader now runs PDF files in a sandbox, preventing them from escaping the PDF viewer and tampering with the rest of your computer.

Features you need to run Microsoft Sandbox

1- Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise, Insider build 18305

2- AMD64 architecture

3- At least 4GB RAM

4- At least 1GB free disk space

5- At least 2 CPU cores

6- Virtualization capabilities enabled in BIOS

Microsoft Sandbox is a very clever feature as it is addressing the fear of running an unknown file on you PC. They have developed a simple way to secure your files and launch them in an isolated desktop environment. Its efficient if you run an organization, its more efficient for security point of view as you can download anything file without having to worry your PC or host will be affected. The confidential data is easily wiped off once Sandbox is closed. It’s a great feature Microsoft has introduced to the market and we plan on using it more often.