Who heard or knows about WannaCry Ransomware? Wasn’t posted here, sorry! But that isn’t the news. If in case you don’t have any single clue of what it is, Wannacry is of the largest cyberattacks ever is currently eating the web, hitting PCs in countries and businesses around the world.
However, this Ransomware, targets computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
WannaCry searches for and encrypts 176 different file types and appends .WCRY to the end of the file name. It ask users to pay a US$300 ransom in bitcoins. The ransom note indicates that the payment amount will be doubled after three days. If payment is not made after seven days, the encrypted files will be deleted.
It has brought computer systems from Russia to China to the UK and the US to their knees, locking people out of their data and demanding they pay a ransom or lose everything.
In Spain, it devastated the country’s biggest phone network, Telefonica, as well as accountancy firm KPMG and retail bank, Banco Santander.
Statistics has it that 200,000 computers in 150 countries have been affected, with victims including hospitals, banks, telecommunications companies and warehouses.
But the news here is that, the world has been saved! By who? Are you as curious as me at first? To be sincere, Wannacry could have affected me, so I had to shut down for few days.
So as it targets only Microsoft Windows operating system, Apple users are safe!
The WannaCry savior is rewarded with a year’s free pizza and $10,000 for saving the Internet. A $10,000 for such a huge Job? Is it not too mini? Well, coughing*was just thinking*
According to him, MalwareTech, says he doesn’t plan to keep a penny, as he intends to split the money between an as-of-yet undisclosed charity, and infosec books for low-income students.
So @Hacker0x01 have awarded me a $10,000 bounty for the “kill-switch”. I plan on splitting it between to-be-decided charities and education.
— MalwareTech (@MalwareTechBlog) May 15, 2017
By education I mean I plan to purchase infosec based book to give to students who cannot afford them themsleves.
— MalwareTech (@MalwareTechBlog) May 15, 2017
With Advice to it;
Warning for Monday: If you turn on a system without the MS17-010 patch and TCP port 445 open, your system can be ransomwared.
— MalwareTech (@MalwareTechBlog) May 15, 2017
And JustEat — which is a bit like the Seamless of the UK — offered MalwareTech a year’s worth of free pizza.
How do I protect my machine?
If you’re running a Windows-powered PC, make sure all your software is up to date. In addition, as always, do not open suspicious emails, click on links you don’t know or open any files you weren’t expecting.
