Kaspersky’s latest report on Q3 about cyberthreats included some fascinating insights. You might have thought WannaCry Ransomware as just a bitter part of history but latest reports suggest that the ransomware is still considered among several well-known ransomware families. What’s more shocking is that the ransomware has been reported to infect close to 75,000 victims, residing all over the globe.
These attacks include data from Q3 2018. Almost 30% of these attacks have involved WannaCry Ransomware. Interestingly, compared to Q3 2017, the percentage has increased by more than 65%. At that time, WannaCry related attacks used to occupy 16.7% of the cyberattacks.
WannaCry first emerged in May 2017 and its arrival marked as an important milestone in the global ransomware industry. At that time, EternalBlue managed to exploit vulnerability in Windows environments. In spite of Windows releasing a patch to address the vulnerability even before the attacks, many users were still infected by the ransomware. Within a short period of time, WannaCry locked data of its victims and demanded money for ransomware removal.
The aftermath of the attack was horrific for many. Healthcare institutions, businesses, and factories had to shut down their operations. Infected organizations scratched their hands around ransomware removal and recovery. Today, many computers have updated themselves to nullify the EternalBlue vulnerability; however, there are still those who keep getting hacked due to a lack of regular updates in their premises.
Fedor Sinitsyn from Kaspersky Lab explained that the recent hike in WannaCry attacks serves as an example that cyber epidemics may rise too quick, but it is unwise to expect them to settle down sooner. He stated that some of these attacks can be extremely damaging to an organization, therefore, it is necessary to build contingency plans and make use of preventive policies like testing and patching devices, instead of risking ransomware removal in the future.
