2019.1 Service Update

January 22, 2019

Release Notes

We're pleased to announce our 2019.1 Service Update, which contains the following:

Features

Ransomware Detection & Management

NOTE  Workplace Ransomware Detection & Management is supported on Workplace Server and Workplace Desktop for Windows and Mac versions 7.4 or later.

A ransomware attack that encrypts your files and leaves you without access to them can pose an enormous threat to your business. And the sooner a ransomware attack is detected, the more effective your damage mitigation will be. While you will still have to manually clean up the source device, Workplace's ransomware detection management limits the impact on your users by stopping the encrypted files from syncing and by allowing you to easily revert any affected files to their last known good state.

Workplace's Ransomware Detection and Management feature:

  • Uses a series of complex algorithms to detect ransomware attacks.
  • Automatically quarantines the source device(s).
  • Stops the source device from syncing to protect other devices using Workplace.
  • Provides you with a confidence rating for the security incident, details about the changes that initiated the ransomware incident, and a full list of the file changes that were made.
  • Allows you to easily revert all affected files to their state before the attack.


  • Automatically notifies all team Administrators and Super Administrators (as well as any alert notification recipients designated on the Notifications page) of security incidents.
  • Provides you with a mechanism to ignore an incident report from certain devices, or to place one or more devices on a Security Excluded Devices list to avoid repeated false positive incident reports.

You'll use the new Security page to track all security incidents:

The new Ransomware Incident details page allows you to monitor and manage each incident through initial detection and automatic quarantine, file reversion, closure, and removal of the affected device(s) from quarantine:

NOTE  This feature is designed to contain the ransomware attack and to keep it from spreading via the sync process. If you have a confirmed ransomware incident, we recommend that you revert the affected files, then recycle the device via Workplace.

Team Alert Notifications

Our new Notifications settings allow you to specify which Workplace Manager users will receive team alert notifications. All team alert emails will be sent to these users in addition to the administrators on the team that generated the alert.

NOTE  Remember that you can always override these default recipients on a per-team basis on the Create or edit a team page.

NOTE  If no notification recipients are identified on this page, team alert emails will not be sent to any Workplace Manager users.

We encourage you to take advantage of this centralized notification management feature to stay informed about any issues generated by your customer teams.

For more information, please refer to Notifications.

Public Link Enhancements

We've made the following enhancements to the Managing project, folder, and file public shares feature:

  • Upload Link
    Provides an upload-only link to which anyone can upload items either directly or via email. They will not be able to see or edit the contents of the project or folder, but they can drop off files for you.
  • File upload limit
    Now you can set the upper size limit for files uploaded to a public link. Just enter the maximum number of MB.
  • Password enhancement
    Password protection for public links has been enhanced with a strength meter that will indicate how secure the password you've entered is.

Please note these additional changes to the Public Links interface:

  • Public users can email files to this Project at...
    When upload is enabled for a public link to a project or folder, any public user can upload items via email. Password protecting the public link will now hide that email address.

  • We've changed the descriptive text for direct links to more accurately describe their functionality.

  • Direct links to files are now called "Download Links," because they allow users to download with minimal interaction.

Changes

Consolidated and Consistent Information Panels

We've standardized the behavior of expanding panels above grid interfaces. A single click on the button will now expand or collapse additional information on the Users, Connections, and Manage Servers pages, providing an overview of your license and storage usage.

Recycled Server Licensing Consumption

Disabled Workplace Server devices will now consume a license. The license will be freed when the device is recycled. In order to ensure a smooth transition to this model, we've extended the period of time for which a device stays in recycle state before it is wiped from 14 days to 90 days.

Issue Resolutions

In addition to a variety of minor enhancements and stability improvements, the following issues are resolved in this release:

Active Directory Enhancements

We've made changes to our Active Directory integration to increase efficiency when working with AD groups.

Editing Team Subscription Issue

Editing license or additional storage for a team would fail for teams that have legacy storage allocated, as the legacy storage was not included in calculating the validity of the changes. This has been resolved.

Connection Move/Copy Issue

Connections may have experienced unexpected behavior when moving or copying items in Workplace Online. The issue has been resolved.

Sync Issue for Items with % in Name

In Workplace Desktop for Windows, syncing items with a % in their name resulted in truncation of the name after the %. Items with a % in their name now retain their original name when synced.