Microsoft says NSA to blame for Wannacry

The ransomware is known as WannaCry, WanaCrypt0r 2.0 or WCry and it’s especially risky because it includes some sort of “worm functionality” that makes it more vicious than a regular ransomware attack.

In a year ago India has seen at least three sophisticated ransomware attacks on Indian companies and banks.

This year in January another ransomware by the name of Lazarus had attacked Indian companies.

While businesses that failed to update Microsoft’s Windows-based computer systems could be sued over lax cyber security, Microsoft itself enjoys strong immunity from lawsuits.

“We may not see the real picture yet, as companies are not mandated to disclose security breaches to authorities in Malaysia”, said LE Global CEO Fong Choong Fook.

“The governments of the world should treat this attack as a wake-up call”.

Earlier on Monday, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt confirmed there had not been a second wave of attacks on NHS trusts and said it was “encouraging” that the level of criminal activity was at “the lower end of the range” anticipated. “Old ATMs are affected by the malware”.

WannaCrypt exploits a very specific hole in Windows called Server Message Block connections. And “within the emails is a.zip file, and once clicked that initiates the WannaCry infection”, Forbes reports.

The company said users of its email service are also fully protected from WannaCry. “Be particularly wary of compressed or ZIP file attachments”, CERT cautions.

Latest update on May 19, 2017 at 10:27 AM by PaulRubens. But the vulnerability still existed for legacy versions of Windows, like Windows 8 and Windows XP.

The vulnerability has been known since February, when Microsoft cancelled its monthly Patch Tuesday deployment to address the problem.

WannaCry specifically targeted computers running out-of-date Windows operating systems by exploiting a vulnerability discovered by the National Security Agency. Microsoft has released a patch for these operating systems, including the ones for which they no longer offer support. “To protect your computer from such malicious malwares, one should be aware of the security measures and install all necessary updates”, Dinesh Yadav, superintendent of police (city), said in a press note.

There has been a brisk debate over who is to blame for the spread of WannaCry.

Always keep your softwares and antivirus up-to-date.

Coverage for extortion, business interruption and the cost of outside experts is included under broad cyber policies that many organizations buy, Mr. Reagan said. System administrators should ensure that employees don’t have unnecessary access to parts of the network that aren’t critical to their work. “In many organisations, sad but true, the need for constant availability trumps security”. It operates by encrypting a computer system and demanding a ransom to release it. They all share a basic structure.

Knowing this was a ransomworm, rather than a normal ransomware, I turned to one of the experts on malware that can spread across Windows networks, Roi Abutbul.