Author: ESET Ireland / Source: Information Security Buzz
On Friday, 12th of May, the world was rocked by the biggest ransomware attack in history. It started with Spain’s telecom sector, then news started coming in about British Health Service being targeted and attacks on FedEx, several Russian banks and ministries as well as many other targets in about a hundred countries across the world.
The culprit? A piece of ransomware that ESET calls WannaCryptor, but also going by WannaCry and Wcrypt, has been spreading rapidly, using leaked NSA files, namely the eternalblue SMB exploit. Unlike most encrypting-type malware, this one has wormlike capabilities, allowing it to spread by itself. As a result, it has spread very quickly indeed.
Since Friday May 12th 14.383 ESET clients reported as many as 66.566 attack attempts (9922 clients reported 60187 – stopped by ESET’s file/memory detection and 4461 clients reported 6379 – stopped by ESET’s Attack Network Protection module).
Top countries affected by the cyberattack, based on file/memory detections (excl. network protection module):
Russia 30189 (45.07%)
Ukraine 7955 (11.88%)
Taiwan 7736 (11.55%)
Philippines 1973 (2.95%)
Egypt…
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