[Julie Steiner]

Now would be an excellent time to stop everything and back up your computer, if you haven't in a while.

So far victims in 74 countries have reported having their data held for ransom by WannaCry ransomware. It seems to be targeting Russia, but with an awful lot of collateral damage elsewhere. For example, enough NHS computers have been infected that surgeries have been cancelled.

[Correction: a later report says that the ransom message is supported in 28 languages, with the appropriate local-language message appearing to victims in various countries.]

Read more here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39901382

Unlike many other malicious programs, this one has the ability to move around a network by itself. Most others rely on humans to spread by tricking them into clicking on an attachment harbouring the attack code.

By contrast, once WannaCry is inside an organisation it will hunt down vulnerable machines and infect them too. This perhaps explains why its impact is so public - because large numbers of machines at each victim organisation are being compromised.

And more info here:

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/12/tech...nsa-microsoft/

Researchers say it is spreading through a Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) Windows exploit called "EternalBlue," which Microsoft released a patch for in March. A hacking group leaked the exploit in a trove of other NSA spy tools last month.

"Affected machines have six hours to pay up and every few hours the ransom goes up," said Kurt Baumgartner, the principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. "Most folks that have paid up appear to have paid the initial $300 in the first few hours."

Windows XP computers seem most vulnerable, since security support ended in 2014.

[Julie Steiner]

Three updates that may be of interest:

1. Someone accidentally disabled the ransomware by registering the unregistered domain name that triggered it.

That doesn't help already-infected machines, and doesn't prevent the virus's designers from reprogramming later versions of the ransomware with another unregistered domain name, but at least it prevents this version from triggering anymore.

2. Microsoft issues security patch for Windows 8, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003

If you're running those versions, you can download the patches at the bottom of that article. It doesn't help already-infected machines.

3. A quote from the above article, followed by a series of Tweets I found interesting:

According to multiple stories in the British media, approximately 90 percent of care facilities in the U.K.’s National Health Service are still using Windows XP – a 16-year-old operating system.

Barry Dorrans tweet-ranting on the scope of the damage, and why hospitals can't just stop using anything XP-related

Whoa.

Why isn't this outdated stuff behind a firewall? I thought that was why firewalls existed.

[John Isbell]

Thank you for these updates, Julie.

[Douglas G. Brown]

According to multiple stories in the British media, approximately 90 percent of care facilities in the U.K.’s National Health Service are still using Windows XP – a 16-year-old operating system.

About 3 months after Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP, random viruses and malware so frigged up my PC, that I had to get another (secondhand) desktop which had Windows 7 on it.

There must have been a million others in my situation. Used XP desktops in the USA are a dime a dozen. They are fine as long as they are not hooked up to the Internet. How many does the U.K.’s National Health Service want?

[Brian Allgar]

It's not surprising that so many people, including me, are still using XP, since virtually all other Microsoft operating systems (with the possible exception of Windows 98) are unadulterated garbage. If Microsoft were an honest and responsible company, they wouldn't have stopped supporting XP - but hey, if they did that, how would they continue to fleece the suckers by forcing them to buy the latest crap?

[Jim Moonan]

I made the switch to Apple OS five years ago and glad I did. Big Brother Apple seems to be doing something right.

Cyberspace is nearly hopelessly convoluted, complicated. If ever there was a need for global action it would be to protect our globally shared cyberspace. When the news first broke about the ransomeware attack, I heard that, in a perfect world where everyone installed updates to their Windows OS, everyone would be protected from attack and an attack of this magnitude could not happen. I don't know for a fact if that's true (Julie you mentioned that MS stopped providing updates in 2014), but if it is, then why don't all operating systems automatically update -- at least the updates that protect our security/privacy?

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by Jim Moonan

why don't all operating systems automatically update -- at least the updates that protect our security/privacy?

Because it's expensive for a tech company to leave pools of talented engineers producing updates for each version they've ever produced. They want to keep their resources as close to the cutting edge as possible.

Also, Brian's right that an expiration date announced by the manufacturer does, indeed, prompt most customers to replace what they already have which is still working with a new $$$$ purchase. (The same phenomenon explains Why EpiPens expire so quickly.)

[Jim Moonan]

Julie: Because it's expensive for a tech company to leave pools of talented engineers working on updates for each version they've ever produced. They want to keep their resources as close to the cutting edge as possible.

What is more expensive - the cost of a tech company securing the resources to protect their operating systems or the cost of attacks like this on the operating system where quite possibly lives are in the balance? What would it take? a 2% increase in cost to the consumer?

Cyberspace is a new frontier and earth needs to protect it, sort of like what it needs to do to protect the planet itself. It's a global problem and requires a global initiative/solution.

Yes, built-in obsolescence is a plague!

Editing back in to say thanks for the updates and info : )