Described as “unprecedented” in scale by Europol, the wave of WannaCry ransomware attacks over the last four days brought hospital infrastructure to its knees. But ransomware is no new threat: will WannaCry finally act as a catalyst to a wider infosec wake-up call?
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WannaCry was launched on Friday 12 May, and over the weekend had affected more than 200,000 IT systems worldwide. Independent researcher Kafeine discovered WannaCry was using code based on the NSA’s EternalBlue exploit, which was publicly leaked by a hacker group called the Shadow Brokers in April this year. EternalBlue uses a vulnerability in the Microsoft Server Message Block protocol for file-sharing to distribute itself on the local network as well as a network worm. An infected device will display a message demanding up to roughly $600 (£460) in bitcoin payment to decrypt locked files.
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