Bitcoin Forum

A massive cyberattack leaked by malware developed by the US National Security Agency swept across the globe Friday after computer networks were locked by a program that demands $300 in Bitcoin

This may done by any hacker around the forum. Will this be affect the rate of adoption over bitcoin and it's price. Please refer below new york post news.

http://nypost.com/2017/05/12/massive-hack-on-uk-hospitals-may-affect-other-countries/

This type of negative news always comes when ever their is a high price in bitcoin and when the correction was to be expected so that bitcoin traders just sell on each rate on this panic news and the real traders can enter back in low rates with taking their profit in pocket and reentering on their initial investment

Temporarily its not a Mtgox but it is a piece of negative news that may mix a few things up for a bit like ETF concerns etc.
Otherwise its just a blip and a reminder that people should really get around to updating their software this has been patched for a month or two.
Microsoft released a patch for the vulnerability last March, but hackers took advantage of the fact that vulnerable targets — particularly hospitals — had not yet updated their systems unless they are still on XP then life just sucks.

Hence it will likely end up as a lesson in cybersecurity.
http://keranews.org/post/ransomware-attacks-ravage-computer-networks-dozens-countries

what i find interesting is that they always used a lot of different methods of payment but Bitcoin payment is always the thing people see, of course usage of bitcoin among them has grown more but only in past year.

according to wikipedia:
"A range of such payment methods have been used, including wire transfers, premium-rate text messages, pre-paid voucher services such as Paysafecard, and the digital currency Bitcoin."

This has happened quite a few times before, and is happening on a daily basis on computers.
It's sad that hospitals and many businesses neglect cyber-security. This is a good lesson to learn.

it actually is always the employees that cause the security risks!
the hackers rarely hack the system directly, they usually sue a dumb employee as their way to enter the system. for example with an infected Email with an infected attachment to the employee of one of these places, and as they open it, they get infected :)

I think they always emphasize BTC because the common opinion for most people who have heard about BTC&cryptocurrency is that this is something 100% anonymously and it can not be tracked,so it's a perfect way for illegal activities such as ransomware.Considering a very small percentage of world population that uses cryptocurrency and have some knowledge about that,it is not strange that BTC in such cases gets negative promotions.

Something similar happened to Wipro a week ago.

Ref: http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/wipro-gets-bio-attack-threat-email-500-crores-in-bitcoin-demanded-1690360


I agree.
This doesn't have anything to do with Bitcoin, other than the fact that they are asking payment in Bitcoins.

The "Wannacry" virus ransomware is really nasty and attacks hospitals.
I don`t believe  that a forum member stands behind this virus.
This is not bad publicity.Bitcoin is just a currency.

If only the employees of every departments or government agencies were knowledgeable in this kind of threat this would be prevented.

And for bitcoin being one of those many demanded payment method by the hackers, I think we must look it a broader side. No doubt, this one will soon pass.

This is just one more proof how bitcoin is very famous way of payments for criminals.
Media will share a lot about it and it will not help us to popularize bitcoin.
Average people, without knowledge about bitcoin may become scared after such news.
I don't think that such news will affect bitcoin price since current bitcoin users understand bitcoin situation very well.

Its all over the news. I think with this kind of media, one should be aware that it is indeed real. So we should be very careful now, if the link looks suspicious don't click on it because you just don't know that you will become the next target of this malicious virus. Also, I don't think this will affect bitcoin in general, and will not impact the current price because of this negative news.

They say even a bad advertisment is advertisment, so all in all this can be a good thing for BTC, in my opinion
1. If companies, hospitals etc. will pay this amount they need to buy BTC - which is good for BTC
2. the fact that this happened on friday, may be good too, BTC transactions works all the time
3. Companies may see a good thing in BTC and will take a better look at this blockchain technology

Why don't they cry out how Microsoft Windows is vulnerable?

They always find someone/something wrong to blame. If the hackers demanded payment in, say, Russian rubles, the mass media would certainly start asserting that evil Putin has been orchestrating the attack himself, without doubt. The real culprits here (apart from the hackers themselves) are hospitals which use shitty software. I hope patients that got affected will file claims against them, and I'm glad that no one in his right mind is running Windows at nuclear power stations (it is said that QNX is mostly used there)

They are attacking bitcoin so its value will not surge up anymore and will go back in value. Possibly it could be done by other altcoins or by other businesses that are negatively affected by bitcoins price increase. It may be a bad news but it can ever decrease the price of bitcoins value. This is just a small challenge on bitcoin and it could never stop bitcoin on its tracks.

Nothing to do with the price.

Ransomware attacks have been around for the last two three years at a rate of one per week.
And they will get even more widespread.

It's just the scale of the last one and the targets that have gained the attention of the media.
Nothing to do with bitcoin.


No it does not target hospitals. And it's not an entity that knows what a hospital is.

Its a good way for hackers to earn good money. Since bitcoin now has a very high price. Its a perfect target for hackers. Ransomwares are now spread all over the internet. And many people are victims of this kind of malware and bitcoin as the ransom. There's no way you can trace the hacker since bitcoin is used for anonimity.

Well well well, just as people will never change and will use any illegal means when it comes to money and amassing wealth I don't think this is any news. They'd do the same to any fiat system through credit card or any form of currency so spreading this negative news about Bitcoin to me is not in good taste because it's could just happen to any currency.

Why can't they keep their self developped weaponery stuff save?!
Why do they distribute their Vault7 stuff worldwide? Their fault, by not classifying materials due to legalese trickery.

And now guess who will be targetted in the following witchhunt? Maybe Bitcoiners? Riiiight there's your answer.

How come that everyone missed the most important fact? It was the malware/ransomware originally developed by US Government!
No one is blaming them for poor security? They allowed this malicious software to be stolen in the first place.

But what mass media and government will do next? They will cry that bitcoin is the root of evil, or think of a way to  curb bitcoin adoption.
We might see next wave of draconian BTC regulations just because there should be a scapegoat behind every crime.

CIA is to blame for everything, they can't keep their documents, software safe:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/07/wikileaks-publishes-biggest-ever-leak-of-secret-cia-documents-hacking-surveillance (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/07/wikileaks-publishes-biggest-ever-leak-of-secret-cia-documents-hacking-surveillance)

BTW, if they developed this ransomware, shouldn't they have a key to decrypt it?!

EDIT: Typos.

True.  They're demanding Bitcoin from everyone, and the vast majority of people being forced to pay in Bitcoin will never have owned Bitcoin before which is why the ransom is in a fixed USD amount.  The Bitcoin price is irrelevant to the amount that they're going to receive from anyone.

Fortunately, the news that I've seen in the mainstream (non-Bitcoin) media has only fleetingly mentioned that the ransom was paid in Bitcoin.  For example, one said:


This was the only mention of Bitcoin in the article.

Very sad indeed, these fools are definitely not part of this forum. This just shows that the current hackers have grown smarter and are using modern day technology to escape the law. They very well know, they can't be traced using Bitcoins and as soon they get they will convert it to Fiat. These fools are earning a bad name for Bitcoin, there are so many nice news coming and this kind of activities is a jolt for the community, cause if more people do this Bitcoin very existence will be doubtful.

These cyber attacks may have negative influence for bitcoin development. People who will see that hackers asks to pay with bitcoin, they will have first negative impression about bitcoins. They may think that bitcoin may be used for bad activities.
Smaller attacks, where hackers and virus spreaders demands to pay bitcoin to unlock data happens daily. But this attack was huge and affected people in over 100 countries in short period.

If anything, this just made bitcoin more known to the public and if they become more curious about they would surely do more research about it. And it's hardly about bitcoin anyway since it only demands a small amount. This is more of a show of force of the hackers and their ability to get into almost outdated systems.

Blogger stops global spread of this virus by registering a domain name that the virus referred to. If domain existed then it was a kill switch for the virus.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/12/global-cyber-attack-ransomware-nsa-uk-nhs

This attack is talk most of the corporate companies today. When I reach my I got this information from friend as Cyber attack on 76 countries. I simply checker Google got this news and that hacker demand bitcoin to being anonymous from the people.

WannaCry Ransomware is not only targeting hospitals but all the big multinationals worldwide. This is first of the hack of its type which is asking for 300$ in bitcoins to unlock the companies network . What make it more painful for us is that it is asking the payments in bitcoins which may bring bad name for bitcoin itself. I know bitcoin has no part to play in this hack but media will report it otherwise in terms of negativity of bitcoins.

protections instructions:
block via win firewalls or routers network:
144.217.0.0/16
in the question why answer is:
researcher MalwareTech has registered a hardcoded domain included in the ransomware’s source code. Wana Decrypt0r connected to this domain (iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com) before it started its execution. The check was strange. The ransomware checked if the domain was unregistered, and if it was, it would execute. If it wasn’t, it would stop spreading, acting like a kill switch. With MalwareTech registering the domain, the ransomware now does not start anymore. Cisco Talos has confirmed the information
this information is from: https://blog.cripperz.sg/2017/05/13/remove-wannacrypt-wcry-ransomware-video/
block and domain iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com to be sure.
this domain using address from subnet 144.217.0.0/16
apply patches :
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/6atu62/psa_massive_ransomware_campaign_wcry_is_currently/
https://twitter.com/MalwareTechBlog/status/863191272969973760
https://twitter.com/BleepinComputer/status/863087754451800064
and can sleep smooth

I guess this will bring new people to bitcoin and increase demand for it even though its obviously a horrible way to do so...

The fact that its irreversible and can be made anonymous through tumblers makes bitcoin the ideal payment method for criminals or all calibers.

Well will I say they are smart? Not really and somehow. Cyberattacks isn't a new thing but using bitcoin is new. It is untraceable as owners acount cannot even be linked to know who is behind this. This in a way will give bitcoin and crypto currencies a bad name as it ends up opening a platform for illegitimate actions.
Moreover, I think at this age and time, every organization should know the essence of beefing up their cybersecurities rather than giving room to some cyberbullies.

You likely meant to say decryption keys?

So that all those wretched hospitals could finally decrypt their encrypted hard drives? As to me, that's unlikely since this ransomware seems to have been stolen as source code, and the hackers obviously changed the keys required for decryption. It is also not impossible that the decryption key is generated on the fly (when the drive is being encrypted), and there is no preset key as such. As an aside, if CIA had been printing counterfeit dollars (one crime) to finance terrorists (another crime), you shouldn't really get surprised by these events (look for more to come)

Things like this bring Bitcoin into bad light. Although fiat money could be a also used for ransomware and other criminal activities people see Bitcoin as a criminal currency. And this worm has realy made the mess all around the world. And there is no proof that hackers will truly decript the files if you pay.

If they are "honest crooks" they will. Ity won;t take long for word to spread that they are not providing keys.

Also, if an US Alphabet Agency tracks them down they may be shot before they can provide the keys.

After wees ago, I heard that many companies were buying the bitcoin just in case there is an ransom attack. I hope they had stored enough bitcoin.

So if the hackers asked to pay the ransom in dollars, that would hurt the image of the US, right?

I don't know about bad publicity but we should certainly expect higher prices since more corporations may have to buy a few bitcoins to pay the ransom. Indeed, attacking hospitals is beyond any excuse for pretty obvious reasons, but, personally, I don't mind if, say, Microsoft will shell out for a few hundred bitcoins (or still better, thousands). If one of their top managers (or even all of them) won't receive his (their) yearly bonus, no one will be particularly disappointed, I guess (apart from themselves, of course)

Like they said here in few days they should find a way to remove those malware, but sure this isnt the kind of news that bitcoin is needing at all, but well, atleast the report havent talked anything else, besides the conection of bitcoin with bad actions, once again someone trying to damage bitcoin.

Do we really need these sort of negative publicity,i would rather have a good publicity than having a negative one like this and these sort of negative news will ring higher to the people who are yet to invest in bitcoin.If you really know how to be secure when you are online you really do not need to worry about these sort of ransomware.

I'm still curious why people think that it is a bad publicity at all

As I got it, many news outlets are barely mentioning Bitcoin in their reports. They don't claim that Bitcoin as such is at fault here or it is the main villain behind the villainy. How come? Personally, I think it is exactly because people en masse no longer associate Bitcoin with criminals only. In other words, Bitcoin has already overgrown this problem (if it had been there at all in the first place). Therefore, if these sources started to criticize Bitcoin for being used only by criminals, that would in fact work against them and likely in favor of Bitcoin. Obviously, the hackers (for all their criminality and viciousness) wouldn't demand trash as ransom

The Wannacrypt Ransomware isn't it? But hasn't it already happened some time ago?
I mean what's wrong with this, just because they demanded some Bitcoin for a ransom doesn't mean Bitcoin itself is bad. What if the "hackers" asked a normal fiat money instead of Bitcoin, would people still think that the money itself is a bad thing just because of this particular event?

Normally hackers demand money in bitcoin only when any major hacking takes place because of its anonymity. Here in India computers of many big firms got hacked and they already payed the desired amount to the hackers for opening their systems. According to a news in BBC one more attack of this kind is going to happen on monday. Regarding its effect on bitcoin. Nothing major gonna happen. They will most certainly convert bitcoin in their local currency and that's it.

No, it most probably wasn't a "killswitch" but a sandbox test environment detection mechanism. Inside the box the virus could decide to stay silent & invisible. Since they mostly just intercept, but apply no intelligence (if the contacted domain exists or not)

And even worser, since that domain got flagged as "beeing malware related" many antivirus programs DO BLOCK IT SO ***aaaaargh*** making the virus spread again, since the antivirus hides the existence of that distinct domain from it.

You could spin in your grave it's all so overly stupid a true security nigthmare

Yes,bitcoin should not be blamed for this.Hackers may have that that it would be easy for them to demand money in bitcoins.Easy process and it could be sent to bitmixer or crypto mixer so that it becomes fully anonymous.

No it is not worse...
The killswitch (yes it was a killswhitch) is still active in the virus with the same domain , they haven't yet released a new version
If the antivirus has labelled the domain as infected through the latest updates it will also label programs that try to access it as malware and block them.

But right now most of the antivirus programs are already able to intercept wannacry

Most internet users not take care about security,this is main problem in this story.If you have good antivirus+firewall regularly updated and critical/security updates from Windows you are pretty safe from this way of attack.The attackers exploit human negligence daily,but maybe people learn something from this and prevent such situations in the future.

Also consider all unsafe on internet,think twice before click on any suspicious link and make regular backup-all this is much cheaper than ransom.

So to mitigate the risk they block the website, damn! How on earth are they going to stop the 1000's of versions of this malware that might come

from this, if this is the method they are going to use? I also have my doubts if this blogger is not in one way or the other involved in this. The

timing of this, when the price of Bitcoin skyrocketed.. is also very suspicious.  ::)

This is one of the biggest news in last 48 hours. here as well in news this is flashing time and again. Newspaper being quoting this being one of the massive attacks and could hamper any more such threats in coming time. It has effected many countries and various users have being struck due to such virus.

I just know that they ask the payment in bitcoin, well it is a bad news for community because govs will review their decision and regulations about bitcoin, but hopefully they don't. Bitcoin isn't fully​ anonymous but hackers could avoid being tracked for sure.
An advantage of bitcoin which used for bad things, at least people around the world would realize about blockchain technology and bitcoin.

just heard the news from our national tv and our government buddy provide information so we can avoid this ransomware
i'm not sure why it will affect btc in value maybe awareness will allow more people to take the risk and invest to this system.