Forbes has an article on the recent WannaCry Ransomware attacks:
After software vulnerabilities exploited and leaked by the NSA were used by cybercriminals to infect as many as 200,000 Windows PCs with ransomware over the last three days, Microsoft has criticized government agencies for hoarding those flaws and keeping them secret.
One particular vulnerability in Windows, leaked by a shady crew called Shadow Brokers, was used by the WannaCry hackers to give their ransomware a worm feature, allowing it to spread between vulnerable PCs silently and at speed. That flaw was exploited by a tool called EternalBlue and was patched by Microsoft in mid-March, but those who didn't apply the update were still open to attack, resulting in the mammoth attack starting Friday that infected 48 UK National Health Service trusts, FedEx, Telefonica, Renault and Nissan car manufacturing plants, U.S. universities, Russian governments and Chinese ATMs, amongst many other systems across 150 countries.
Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said by keeping software weaknesses secret, vendors are left in the dark, can't issue updates, and their customers are left vulnerable to attacks such as the one that exploded this weekend. he compared the leak of NSA exploits to the theft of missiles from the American military, pointing also to the Wikileaks dump of CIA hacking tools.
More of the article can be found on Forbes.
Comments
- Many speculate this is launched from the governments in an attempt to "devalue bitcoin", or to make people not trust it because it's used in criminal activity.
- Many say the people infected should suit themselves for using old Windows XP and Windows 7 computers. Microsoft, immediately went in and put out a patch for these version, which makes people believe they were prepared.
- The ransomware is said to not even encrypt any files, just pop up on the screen and require payment.
- The people who "did it" haven't taken any bitcoin out of the wallet at this point (haven't heard it yet). The sum is said to have reached $30,000 so far, I think this is a low figure.