SandBoxie: Run Programs in a secured environment on Windows

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Sandboxie is great program designed for the Windows operating system for protecting the computer from any malicious program and prevent them from making changes to the system files. The application allows user to run programs like browser, PDF, Word, Excel or any other application in a Sandbox environment.

Sandboxie helps user to protect their computer from malicious software, rogue programs, Trojan, spyware, worms, viruses and any threat that can damage the machine. Sandboxie act as a firewall in between your computer and the program you are currently using it as threats gets downloaded when you are online.

Sandboxie for Windows



How Sandboxie works

Sandboxing is a method of preventing any permanent damage to your system caused by malware, by denying them access to you real system by having the sandbox pretend to be the real operating system. Sandboxie is somewhat different from the usual sandbox program since it does not virtualize everything. It virtualizes only the resources that are requested by the programs running inside the sandbox – like Files, Disk Devices, Registry Keys, Process and Thread objects, Driver objects, and objects used for Inter-process communication such as Named Pipes and Mailbox Objects, Events, Mutexs , Semaphores, Sections and LPC Ports. You can read more about Sandboxie and Sandboxing.

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Sandboxie and Sandboxing explained

One purpose for Sandboxing applications is a method to prevent any permanent damage to your system caused by malware. The basic idea is that you prevent the malware from having access to your real system by having the sandbox pretend to be the real operating system. Applications that run inside the sandbox don't know they do not have direct access to the OS or any direct access to other system resources.

Sandboxie is somewhat different from the usual sandbox program since it does not virtualize everything. It virtualizes only the resources that are requested by the programs running inside the sandbox. The Sandboxie website lists these resources as; Files, Disk Devices, Registry Keys, Process and Thread objects, Driver objects, and objects used for Inter-process communication such as Named Pipes and Mailbox Objects, Events, Mutexs , Semaphores, Sections and LPC Ports. Its worth noting that because Sandboxie does not allow loading drivers within the sandbox and refuses access to the Service Control Manager, rootkits cannot be installed.

The benefits of Sandboxie compared to a sandbox application like Returnil are mostly convenience. You don't have to reboot to run a program in a sandbox, and conversely you don't have to reboot to get out of the sandbox. An example of this is CrossOver Mac where it looks like windows applications are running natively within the Mac OS or andLinux where Linux applications appear to run natively within the Windows environment. In reality, neither applications running in CrossOver nor andLinux are running natively. They are running in what I think of as a blended mode, the application itself is being virtualized with only the native OS resources required to run the application. Sandboxie performs in the same way. It blends sandboxed applications into the non-sandboxed environment.

An application can be preset to run in a sandbox so that every time you start it, it runs in the sandbox, automatically starting the sandbox if necessary. Also in any program like explorer you can right click and choose run in sandbox. Any application that is started by an application running in the sandbox is also started in that sandbox. You can also run multiple sandboxes to isolate sandboxed programs. When the last sandboxed application is closed you can use a third party application to securely delete the sandbox.

Using Sandboxie you can define exceptions for applications to have access to specific resources outside of the sandbox. For example, you can allow your browser access to the actual file (or folder) where bookmarks are stored so that you don't lose any bookmarks when the sandbox is deleted. Exceptions can be made for almost any system resource. You can also define Quick Recovery folders (e.g. a folder where you store your downloaded files) to have Sandboxie prompt you to save a file outside of the sandbox. This is useful if you will be deleting the sandbox but don't want to lose a downloaded file. Access to resources outside of the sandbox can be denied as well. By configuring the ClosedFilePath and ClosedKeyPath settings within each sandbox's options you can deny access to any resource that you do not want the sandboxed applications to see. By default sandboxed applications have read only access to the file system and registry.

The drawback of Sandboxie (and similar programs) is that it is theoretically possible to write an exploit that bypasses the sandbox protection. If that happens then it's possible that a malicious program could do as much damage to your system as an application running outside of a sandbox. A sandbox application that virtualizes the entire OS and all resources like Returnil is more (but not entirely) immune to this presuming that at some point you save anything outside the sandbox.

An example Sandboxie setup is to configure two sandboxes. The first sandbox contains internet applications (the highest risk). The second contains applications that are untrustworthy or that are being tested. The first sandbox is automatically deleted each time after use. The second is for longer term use and is only deleted manually.

When you launch the application, it creates an isolated space and prevents programs to make permanent changes in the computer.

User can configure Sandboxie application according to their requirement and can run multiple applications in a single Sandboxie program. Threats ranging from botnets to banking Trojans that are very destructive in nature and some ransomware are considered as the biggest threat for security conscious computer user.

How to use Sandboxie

• Download Sandboxie and run the setup.exe file to install the application, the setup.exe will download few more files to complete the installation once done a Sandboxie Control window will pop up on the screen.

• Right click on the Sandbox Default Box to launch the program in Sandboxie.

• You can go into All Programs, click on Sandboxie and make a shortcut on the desktop from “Run web browser sandboxed” or pin it to the Start screen or Start menu, Quick launch or Taskbar.

You can get tips on how to use Sandboxie here.

Why consider Sandboxie

• Secure Web browsing: Allows user to surf web in Sandbox environment hence blocks any malicious program to get downloaded when you are online.

• Provides Protective Shield over Email: We receive numerous emails in a day many are spam, few are useful those mails contains attachment which might contains virus or malicious software. Sandboxie application prevents those file to get downloaded on the computer and infect the computer

• Provides Enhanced Privacy: When we surf, all information like web cookies, browser cache are stored on the computer which can be easily seen by hackers, so when the web-browser runs in Sandbox environment it saves those data inside the application itself hence prevent those cache files to get downloaded on the machine.

• Prevention from Wear and Tear: As Sandboxie runs application in a shield hence it prevents malicious program to get installed on the computer.

For Windows XP user, SandBoxie is a must-have program as Microsoft has already stopped providing security patches, hence it allows hackers to easily break into the computer. SandBoxie can be installed on Windows XP SP3 and higher and is available in Free and Pro version.

You can get Sandboxie from its download page. It works on all Windows, including Windows 8.1.

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