WannaCry – Network Securitas

May 12, 2017

U.K. Hospitals Hit in Widespread Ransomware Attack

This post was originally published on this siteAt least 16 hospitals in the United Kingdom are being forced to divert emergency patients today after computer systems there were infected with ransomware, a type of malicious software that encrypts a victim’s documents, images, music and other files unless the victim pays for a key to unlock them. It remains unclear exactly how this ransomware strain is being disseminated and why it appears to have spread so quickly, but there are indications the malware may be spreading to vulnerable systems through a security hole in Windows that was recently patched by Microsoft. […]

September 5, 2017

Who Is Marcus Hutchins?

This post was originally published on this siteIn early August 2017, FBI agents in Las Vegas arrested 23-year-old British security researcher Marcus Hutchins on suspicion of authoring and/or selling “Kronos,” a strain of malware designed to steal online banking credentials. Hutchins was virtually unknown to most in the security community until May 2017 when the U.K. media revealed him as the “accidental hero” who inadvertently halted the global spread of WannaCry, a ransomware contagion that had taken the world by storm just days before. Relatively few knew it before his arrest, but Hutchins has for many years authored the popular […]

May 14, 2019

Microsoft Patches ‘Wormable’ Flaw in Windows XP, 7 and Windows 2003

This post was originally published on this siteMicrosoft today is taking the unusual step of releasing security updates for unsupported but still widely-used Windows operating systems like XP and Windows 2003, citing the discovery of a “wormable” flaw that the company says could be used to fuel a fast-moving malware threat like the WannaCry ransomware attacks of 2017. The vulnerability (CVE-2019-0709) resides in the “remote desktop services” component built into supported versions of Windows, including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008. It also is present in computers powered by Windows XP and Windows 2003, operating systems […]

November 7, 2019

Study: Ransomware, Data Breaches at Hospitals tied to Uptick in Fatal Heart Attacks

This post was originally published on this siteHospitals that have been hit by a data breach or ransomware attack can expect to see an increase in the death rate among heart patients in the following months or years because of cybersecurity remediation efforts, a new study posits. Health industry experts say the findings should prompt a larger review of how security — or the lack thereof — may be impacting patient outcomes. Researchers at Vanderbilt University‘s Owen Graduate School of Management took the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) list of healthcare data breaches and used it to drill […]