Ransomware infections reported worldwide

A massive ransomware campaign appears to have infected a number of organisations around the world.
Screenshots of a well known program that locks computers and demands a payment in Bitcoin have been shared online ......

There have been reports of infections in the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Taiwan and others.

Ransomware infections reported worldwide

Not sure how big this is as yet. I work for a large global company and we suffered a huge attack in offices across UK and Europe. Be careful out there it's already hit National Health Service here in UK. Many appointments having to be cancelled......I guess more news will follow. .....

Lots of companies affected.. looks like this is eternal blue. Which is a hack developed for the NSA.. American intelligence services!!

a reply to: Misterlondon

I cannot confirm or deny that is true 😉

a reply to: mirageman

If it's all connected........sounds like a plot for a 007 movie or something: Ransom the world.

a reply to: mirageman

i heard about this this morning.
i'm sure it will be a short matter of time before a resolution to the mess is developed.
question to anyone savvy with computers; if a personal computer gets attacked like this, will installing a fresh operating system clear it up?
wipe the hard drive clean and start over?

originally posted by: Misterlondon
Lots of companies affected.. looks like this is eternal blue. Which is a hack developed for the NSA.. American intelligence services!!

The leaking of all those government hacking tools is going to have dire consequences. It's just taking people a little bit of time to learn how to use everything....I have a feeling this might signal a start to widespread hacking like we've never seen. With all our government tools out in the wild now, nothing is safe, nothing is secure.

Yes it will, a reply to: subfab

originally posted by: eriktheawful
a reply to: mirageman

If it's all connected........sounds like a plot for a 007 movie or something: Ransom the world.

Lots of companies are affected now including fed ex, the uk national health service, santander bank, telephonica.. mostly Europe but some attacks now on the east coast of China, usa, Australia. ..

The reason for this is mostly the time difference around the world. Most of the word was asleep whilst the attacks were taking place in Europe.

originally posted by: subfab
a reply to: mirageman

i heard about this this morning.
i'm sure it will be a short matter of time before a resolution to the mess is developed.
question to anyone savvy with computers; if a personal computer gets attacked like this, will installing a fresh operating system clear it up?
wipe the hard drive clean and start over?

Basically it encrypts your hard drive. If you don't pay up, your HDD is basically a complicated paperweight.

originally posted by: subfab
a reply to: mirageman

i heard about this this morning.
i'm sure it will be a short matter of time before a resolution to the mess is developed.
question to anyone savvy with computers; if a personal computer gets attacked like this, will installing a fresh operating system clear it up?
wipe the hard drive clean and start over?

Just go back to the last back up..

it only encrypts the files a reformat and reinstall is no problem
a reply to: PokeyJoe

originally posted by: PokeyJoe

originally posted by: subfab
a reply to: mirageman

i heard about this this morning.
i'm sure it will be a short matter of time before a resolution to the mess is developed.
question to anyone savvy with computers; if a personal computer gets attacked like this, will installing a fresh operating system clear it up?
wipe the hard drive clean and start over?

Basically it encrypts your hard drive. If you don't pay up, your HDD is basically a complicated paperweight.

Even if you pay the chances of getting the password are very slim.. its just a scam..
There will already be capable people working in this.

originally posted by: PokeyJoe

originally posted by: subfab
a reply to: mirageman

i heard about this this morning.
i'm sure it will be a short matter of time before a resolution to the mess is developed.
question to anyone savvy with computers; if a personal computer gets attacked like this, will installing a fresh operating system clear it up?
wipe the hard drive clean and start over?

Basically it encrypts your hard drive. If you don't pay up, your HDD is basically a complicated paperweight.

that would be awful. lucky, hard drives are not too expensive and can be replaced with a little work and time.

I'm not sure but it looks like a demonstration and to taunt the NSA.

nsa-exploit-used -by-wannacry-ransomware

Have to say though.. These guys have hit major organisations. They will have to look over their shoulders now.
The NHS is the British government.. if any other governments get hit aswell these guys better run for the hills.
With this hitting NHS has now put people's lives at risk.. its not about money anymore..

a reply to: Misterlondon

The NHS is the British government.. if any other governments get hit aswell these guys better run for the hills. With this hitting NHS has now put people's lives at risk.. its not about money anymore..

Agreed...the UK should hit these plebs hard its one thing going after banks and corps all that craps insured...the NHS though...sorry but you have crossed the line, peoples lives literally depend on these computer systems...its seek and destroy time if you ask me

Isn't there software protections against ransomware, like AVs?

Is there anything one can do to protect themselves?

Don't companies have firewalls, etc to prevent such disruptions?

originally posted by: PokeyJoe

originally posted by: Misterlondon
Lots of companies affected.. looks like this is eternal blue. Which is a hack developed for the NSA.. American intelligence services!!

The leaking of all those government hacking tools is going to have dire consequences. It's just taking people a little bit of time to learn how to use everything....I have a feeling this might signal a start to widespread hacking like we've never seen. With all our government tools out in the wild now, nothing is safe, nothing is secure.

There was a danger from hacking way before those documents were published. The hazards of using default passpords on routers and servers is the #1 entry vector (admin/admin, password/password). There are actually webpages which list all the default passwords for these systems. Then there is shodan (shodan.io) which provdes an online search engine for systems that are open to the Internet. These can be searched by manufacturer, by university, by company so anyone can search for webcams or servers. It only takes one open system which hasn't been updated... then all the other exploits that take advantage of buffer overflows, man-in-the-middle attacks, specially crafted packets can be used.

I saw this as the NY Times alert landed on my phone a few hours ago. Passed along the warning to friends and told them to not open any documents via email.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

It's not something an AV can protect and it's not something that will likely hit home users so don't be worried

It's all down to invulnerabilities within Intel's business CPU's

A patch for the vulnerability was released by Microsoft in March, but many systems may not have had the update installed.

www.bbc.co.uk...

It's basically a backdoor in the CPU firmware
Red alert! Intel patches remote execution hole that's been hidden in chips since 2010

An unprivileged network attacker could gain system privileges to provisioned Intel manageability SKUs: Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) and Intel Standard Manageability (ISM). An unprivileged local attacker could provision manageability features gaining unprivileged network or local system privileges on Intel manageability SKUs: Intel Active Management Technology (AMT), Intel Standard Manageability (ISM), and Intel Small Business Technology (SBT).

All the IT admins should be fired for not updating such a massive flaw in their systems to be honest, they've had 2 months to update it and quite clearly, nobody has bothered to do a damn thing