Worldwide ransomware hack hits hospitals, phone companies
May 13, 2017
The ransomware attack has hit 16 NHS hospitals in the UK and up to 70,000 devices across 74 countries using a leaked exploit first discovered by the NSA.
A global ransomware attack is holding more than 60,000 computers hostage.
Banks, telephone companies and hospitals have all been ensnared in the worldwide hack, with the malware locking down computers while demanding a hefty sum for freedom.
The attack has hit thousands of computers across China, Russia, Spain, Italy and Vietnam, but hospitals in England have attracted the most attention because lives are at risk while hospital systems are locked down.
The spread of the attack was temporarily halted Friday night when a UK cybersecurity researcher inadvertently activated a "kill switch" in the malware's code, said a Guardian report. That gave US firms additional time to patch their systems to avoid infection, but the researcher said his fix would eventually be sidestepped by the hackers, and it didn't help networks already hit by the ransomware.
Among them were IT systems and phone lines in National Health Service hospitals in the UK. The East and North Hertfordshire NHS trust updated its website shortly after the attack, telling visitors that they were "currently experiencing significant problems with our IT and telephone network."
"The investigation is at an early stage but we believe the malware variant is Wanna Decryptor," the NHS said in a statement Friday.
Avast detected up to 52,000 attacks from the WanaCrypt0r 2.0 ransomware, also called the WannaCry ransomware, yesterday. The majority of the new malware was targeting Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan, Avast Threat Lab team lead Jakub Kroustek said.
The malware had spread across 74 countries as of Friday. On the Malware Tech blog's tracker, cybersecurity researchers showed that more than 70,000 computers had been affected by the ransomware.
https://www.cnet.com/news/england-ho...despread-hack/