[2017-05-13] Massive ransomware infection hits computers in 99 countries

[freedomno1]

A massive cyber-attack using tools believed to have been developed by the US National Security Agency has struck organisations around the world.
Computers in thousands of locations have been locked by a programme that demands $300 (£230) in Bitcoin.

In April hackers known as The Shadow Brokers claimed to have stolen the tools and released them online.
Microsoft released a patch for the vulnerability in March, but many systems may not have been updated.
How big is the attack?

There have been reports of infections in 99 countries, including the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain, Italy and Taiwan.

Cyber-security firm Avast said it had seen 75,000 cases of the ransomware - known as WannaCry and variants of that name - around the world.
"This is huge," said Jakub Kroustek at Avast.

Many researchers say the incidents appear to be linked, but say it may not be a coordinated attack on specific targets.

Meanwhile wallets for the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin that were seemingly associated with the ransomware were reported to have started filling up with cash.

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) has been hit and screenshots of the WannaCry program were shared by NHS staff.

Hospitals and doctors' surgeries were forced to turn away patients and cancel appointments. One NHS worker told the BBC that patients would "almost certainly suffer" as a result.

Some reports said Russia had seen more infections than any other single country. Russia's interior ministry said it had "localised the virus" following an "attack on personal computers using Windows operating system".

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39901382

Related:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39553241

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[Dudeperfect]

It's really worsted attack and it affected nearly 100 countries around the world. This affected the computers from universities, government offices, train stations etc. I hope if anyone from bitcoin holder is affected by this attack then he/she must have maintained a backup of wallet.dat file.


University :




German Train Station:




The best way to prevent such attack is to UPDATE ANTIVIRUS PROGRAMMES FREQUENTLY.

[ididnotwritethis]

Don't worry.
It's just tax.
 

[1Referee]

Don't worry.
It's just tax.
 

Good one. Governments; If you don't pay the tax you owe us, we come and get it from you.

Jokes aside, I have been seeing quite some news articles in the local media and the mainstream media channels regarding the recent flood of ransomware infections. One thing that gets me pissed off badly, is the fact that they blame Bitcoin for the increased number of ransomware attacks. It's beyond insane how stupid people can be. Blame the people that download rubbish, blame people that blindly click on any links, blame hospitals, universities, law enforcements, etc, for running outdated crap software. Blame the people, and not the tool - how difficult is that to understand?

[RomanJDS]

I saw a similar virus 10 years ago. But it asked to send SMS. It cost from 1 to 10 dollars. Hackers are very greedy now.

[Kemarit]

I also saw a news report just now in CNN local(Philippines). You became frustrated when your personal computers or laptop and to damn slow virus of a virus, but what if the virus demand you to pay ransom to remove it from your computers so that you can access your important files again?

Hackers also evolved as well, initially they just hack just to proved a point, now they are demanding you to pay them. Yes, they became greedy now. It is like they are cyber terrorist now, they are holding you hostage and to prevent hassle on you end, you don't have a choice but to pay them.  I guess we should to careful now not to click on anything we see on the internet. Specially pornographic ads because hackers are exploiting on this human weaknesses.

[cr1776]

...
The best way to prevent such attack is to UPDATE ANTIVIRUS PROGRAMMES FREQUENTLY.

Avoiding Windows too, particularly XP.

[Immakillya]

Now, this is a serious problem for all of us. Especially us bitcoin users. This highly sophisticated malware is a bad picture for bitcoin. Hackers wants bitcoin now since its expensive and its easy for them to get than to hack banks. As technology is evolving very fast. Hackers are created innovative tools too. This ransomware is no new to me but this is serious problem.

[8xbt.com]

Microsoft products are bad. RIP Microsoft.

[freedomno1]

Now, this is a serious problem for all of us. Especially us bitcoin users. This highly sophisticated malware is a bad picture for bitcoin. Hackers wants bitcoin now since its expensive and its easy for them to get than to hack banks. As technology is evolving very fast. Hackers are created innovative tools too. This ransomware is no new to me but this is serious problem.

That is true it is a question of public perception as Dudeperfect showed in pictures that is what people see when the ransomware is active without much context other than they need to pay a ransom so it will leave a bad taste. The other problem is that firms are lazy to update their software or can't in the case of hospitals without lagging the whole healthcare system more.

I saw a similar virus 10 years ago. But it asked to send SMS. It cost from 1 to 10 dollars. Hackers are very greedy now.

I remember those ones mumble remembers back in the days when the worst ones just created 100's of IE tabs on you and it was a manual clean after a certain point because antivirus software's could not go deep into root files and execute true cleans just a top level purge, those were the days.

[aso118]

...
The best way to prevent such attack is to UPDATE ANTIVIRUS PROGRAMMES FREQUENTLY.

Avoiding Windows too, particularly XP.

Unfortunately, none of the media outlets seem to be highlighting this point. Most articles give more negative press to Bitcoin, rather than Microsoft in this attack. And lay people tend to believe what they read.

[jonnybravo0411]

...
The best way to prevent such attack is to UPDATE ANTIVIRUS PROGRAMMES FREQUENTLY.

Avoiding Windows too, particularly XP.

Unfortunately, none of the media outlets seem to be highlighting this point. Most articles give more negative press to Bitcoin, rather than Microsoft in this attack. And lay people tend to believe what they read.

Most of these media themselves are managed manually and every information that appears is needed exactly in the form in which they are presented. So all these attacks, he is lying to humanity, what you need someone, this I'm sure.

[Dudeperfect]

...
The best way to prevent such attack is to UPDATE ANTIVIRUS PROGRAMMES FREQUENTLY.

Avoiding Windows too, particularly XP.

Unfortunately, none of the media outlets seem to be highlighting this point. Most articles give more negative press to Bitcoin, rather than Microsoft in this attack. And lay people tend to believe what they read.

Most of these media themselves are managed manually and every information that appears is needed exactly in the form in which they are presented. So all these attacks, he is lying to humanity, what you need someone, this I'm sure.

Agree, I would not blame bitcoin in this case as hackers could have asked for something else if bitcoin was not there. There are many many users out there who are still using old operating systems like windows XP and even without any protection. It's also a sad thing on media's part that they are putting all the blame on bitcoin.

[michkima]

This is pretty bad news for the establishments that get hack as well as for bitcoin users. This really puts bitcoins in another bad light, like what happened back when Mt.Gox got hacked and bitcoin was massively advertised as bad money used by crooks in the dark net.

[veleten]

I'm sure ,the attacks ,despite all the evidence will be connected to Russia 
#Russiadidit
Microsoft blamed ANB and FBI for the "largest scale attack in history",Snowden said the same
but this just can't be-the most democratic of all democracies using undocumented bugs to extort money and infiltrate computers?
could it be a plan to tarnish bitcoin's reputation?

[Kava]

I'm sure ,the attacks ,despite all the evidence will be connected to Russia 
#Russiadidit
Microsoft blamed ANB and FBI for the "largest scale attack in history",Snowden said the same
but this just can't be-the most democratic of all democracies using undocumented bugs to extort money and infiltrate computers?
could it be a plan to tarnish bitcoin's reputation?

I do not think this is a plan to reduce the popularity of the bitcoins. Just scammers decided to use bitcoin, because it will be impossible to track where the payment went. Scammers used anonymity bitcoin

[richardsNY]

...
The best way to prevent such attack is to UPDATE ANTIVIRUS PROGRAMMES FREQUENTLY.

Avoiding Windows too, particularly XP.

Unfortunately, none of the media outlets seem to be highlighting this point. Most articles give more negative press to Bitcoin, rather than Microsoft in this attack. And lay people tend to believe what they read.

I must say that after reading all articles that put Bitcoin away as one of the main causes for this attack, that the smaller (mostly local) news sites do point their attention at outdated software instead of Bitcoin -- it was a welcome change. It's mind boggling how stupid people are if they really believe all nonsense coming from the media. However, now Bitcoin is gaining recognition throughout the world by getting legalized in certain countries, I am fairly sure that people will less likely see Bitcoin as something shady. It's all about education, really -- ignorance is the main problem.

[lllaqpt]

...
The best way to prevent such attack is to UPDATE ANTIVIRUS PROGRAMMES FREQUENTLY.

Avoiding Windows too, particularly XP.

You scared me. I have XP. And why is it a vulnerable operating system?
And what am I supposed to do to keep my computer safe from this terrible virus?

[Dudeperfect]

...
The best way to prevent such attack is to UPDATE ANTIVIRUS PROGRAMMES FREQUENTLY.

Avoiding Windows too, particularly XP.

You scared me. I have XP. And why is it a vulnerable operating system?
And what am I supposed to do to keep my computer safe from this terrible virus?

The latest data is showing that most of the victims (98%) was using windows 7 and not XP but still Microsoft issued a patch for XP users too to prevent further such attacks.

The best practice is to update the operating system and anti-virus programs time to time to avoid such attacks.

* 98% of WannaCry victims were running Windows 7, not XP.

* Microsoft issues ‘highly unusual’ Windows XP patch to prevent massive ransomware attack.