Lessons From the 100 Nation Ransomware Attack

By ROSS KOPPEL and HAROLD THIMBLEBY The world is reeling from the massive ransomware attack on at least a hundred nations’ computer systems. The unprecedented malware spasm infected hundreds of thousands of computers, and would have infected millions more but for a 22-year old computer science student who found a vulnerability in the malware that he used to curtail the infection. He found it looked for a non-existent URL, so he a set up that URL and found he could stop it spreading. Of course, now the hackers know that, it is an easy matter to update the malware to use other URLs and other techniques. Clearly, this iconic malware attack is not going to be the last. What do we know about the malware? The NSA (the US National Security Agency) found that there was a vulnerability in some of Microsoft’s operating systems. The NSA was itself hacked, and ransomware was developed that exploited the vulnerability. This ransomware was then distributed on the black market. The original flaw is called “EternalBlue” and it was converted into the now notorious ransomware program called “WannaCry.” It is important to note that no special skills are required to actually use ransomware: WannaCry is just a tool a criminal buys in the hope of causing chaos or making money or gaining fame. The NSA has an interesting problem. It discovers a backdoor that may help it fight terrorism, so it makes sense to keep it secret. In hindsight, once the flaw is known to hackers it is quickly ex...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs