US Patent 10509905 Ransomware mitigation system

Endpoints in a network environment include remote file systems mounted thereto that reference a file system generator that responds to file system commands with deception data. Requests to list the contents of a directory are intercepted, such as while a response is passed up through an IO stack. The response is modified to include references to deception files and directories that do not actually exist on the system hosting the file system generator. The number of the deception files and directories may be randomly selected. Requests to read deception files are answered by generating a file having a file type corresponding to the deception file. Deception files may be written back to the system by an attacker and then deleted.