{"id":1280,"date":"2017-05-25T20:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T00:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techsolutionsinc.com\/blog\/wannacry-a-historic-cyberattack\/"},"modified":"2022-03-02T08:42:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T13:42:09","slug":"wannacry-a-historic-cyberattack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techsolutionsinc.com\/blog\/wannacry-a-historic-cyberattack\/","title":{"rendered":"WannaCry: A historic cyberattack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"No one can escape the news of WannaCry. The IT industry has been covering this type of malware for years, but never has one campaign spread so far or infected so many computers. Read on to gain a greater understanding of what happened and how to prepare yourself for the inevitable copy cats.<\/p>\n

Ransomware review<\/h3>\n

Ransomware is a specific type of malware program that either encrypts or steals valuable data and threatens to erase it or release it publicly unless a ransom is paid. We\u2019ve been writing about this terrifying threat for years, but the true genesis of ransomware dates all the way back to 1989.<\/p>\n

This form of digital extortion has enjoyed peaks and troughs in popularity since then, but never has it been as dangerous as it is now. In 2015, the FBI reported a huge spike in the popularity of ransomware, and healthcare providers became common targets because of the private and time-sensitive nature of their hosted data.<\/p>\n

The trend got even worse, and by the end of 2016 ransomware had become a $1 billion-a-year industry.<\/p>\n

The WannaCry ransomware<\/h3>\n

Although the vast majority of ransomware programs rely on convincing users to click compromised links in emails, the WannaCry version seems to have spread via more technical security gaps. It\u2019s still too early to be sure, but the security experts at Malwarebytes Labs believe that the reports of WannaCry being transmitted through phishing emails is simply a matter of confusion<\/a>. Thousands of other ransomware versions are spread through spam email every day and distinguishing them can be difficult.<\/p>\n

By combining a Windows vulnerability recently leaked from the National Security Agency\u2019s cyber arsenal and some simple programming to hunt down servers that interact with public networks, WannaCry spread itself further than any malware campaign has in the last 15 years.<\/p>\n

Despite infecting more than 200,000 computers in at least 150 countries, the cyberattackers have only made a fraction of what you would expect. Victims must pay the ransom in Bitcoins, a totally untraceable currency traded online. Inherent to the Bitcoin platform is a public ledger, meaning anyone can see that WannaCry\u2019s coffers have collected a measly 1% of its victims payments.<\/p>\n

How to protect yourself for what comes next<\/h3>\n

Part of the reason this ransomware failed to scare users into paying up is because it was so poorly made. Within a day of its release, the self-propagating portion of its programming was brought to a halt by an individual unsure of why it included a 42-character URL that led to an unregistered domain. Once he registered the web address for himself, WannaCry stopped spreading.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that doesn\u2019t help the thousands that were already infected. And it definitely doesn\u2019t give you an excuse to ignore what cybersecurity experts are saying, \u201cThis is only the beginning.\u201d WannaCry was so poorly written, it\u2019s amazing it made it as far as it did. And considering it would\u2019ve made hundreds of millions of dollars if it was created by more capable programmers, your organization needs to prepare for the next global cyberattack<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Every single day it should be your goal to complete the following:<\/p>\n