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Europol: There's no 'kill switch' for malware attack

Cardinal

Cardinal

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If you haven't backed up your computer in the last couple weeks, now would be a good time.

The ransomware virus spread quickly beginning on Tuesday, shutting down entire computer networks and demanding users pay a ransom to get their files back.

"This is another serious ransomware attack with global impact, although the number of victims is not yet known," said Europol executive director Rob Wainwright. "It is a demonstration of how cybercrime evolves at scale."

The Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Group IB estimated that about 100 companies and organizations have been hit by the virus. The victims are spread around the globe and across different industries, including banking, transportation, energy and even candy.
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Europol: There's no 'kill switch' for malware attack - Jun. 28, 2017
 
JANFU said:
Be interesting to see if as reported this was stolen from the NSA? If so, do they have a patch???
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I don't know, but I'm not taking any chances

Yeesh. I hadn't backed up my computer since April.
 
Cardinal said:
I don't know, but I'm not taking any chances

Yeesh. I hadn't backed up my computer since April.
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I do, except the hard drive every so often, nothing I can lose that is not easily replaced.
 
Some of my guys are going to a Hackathon next week to learn how to detect and isolate hacks.
 
JANFU said:
Be interesting to see if as reported this was stolen from the NSA? If so, do they have a patch???
Click to expand...

A theory I've heard is that this was a Russian cyberattack, which makes sense when you consider the initial target.

Computer systems from Ukraine to the United States were struck on Tuesday in an international cyberattack that was similar to a recent assault that crippled tens of thousands of machines worldwide.

In Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, A.T.M.s stopped working. About 80 miles away, workers were forced to manually monitor radiation at the old Chernobyl nuclear plant when their computers failed. And tech managers at companies around the world — from Maersk, the Danish shipping conglomerate, to Merck, the drug giant in the United States — were scrambling to respond. Even an Australian factory for the chocolate giant Cadbury was affected.

It was unclear who was behind this cyberattack, and the extent of its impact was still hard to gauge Tuesday. It started as an attack on Ukrainian government and business computer systems — an assault that appeared to have been intended to hit the day before a holiday marking the adoption in 1996 of Ukraine’s first Constitution after its break from the Soviet Union. The attack spread from there, causing collateral damage around the world.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/technology/ransomware-hackers.html

Cyberwar was something we'd always known was coming, but it was unclear what it would look like once it was here. I guess the answer is you just wake up on day and say, "Oh, I guess there's a cyberwar going on, then."

What's particularly chilling about cyberwarfare is that you no longer need to be one of the most advanced countries on earth to even do it well. Russia has an economy the size of Italy, and they've been doing nothing but kicking everybody's asses on the digital front.
 
Cardinal said:
A theory I've heard is that this was a Russian cyberattack, which makes sense when you consider the initial target.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/technology/ransomware-hackers.html

Cyberwar was something we'd always known was coming, but it was unclear what it would look like once it was here. I guess the answer is you just wake up on day and say, "Oh, I guess there's a cyberwar going on, then."

What's particularly chilling about cyberwarfare is that you no longer need to be one of the most advanced countries on earth to even do it well. Russia has an economy the size of Italy, and they've been doing nothing but kicking everybody's asses on the digital front.
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It just seems so overt and global for it to be a Russian play. If investigations come out it was the Kremlin behind this then you have cause for war from every country in contact with this virus. Computer viruses seem too unstable for them to be used so lightly by a government. Russia took some hits in the attack as well.
 
ModerateRN said:
It just seems so overt and global for it to be a Russian play. If investigations come out it was the Kremlin behind this then you have cause for war from every country in contact with this virus. Computer viruses seem too unstable for them to be used so lightly by a government. Russia took some hits in the attack as well.
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The theory is that it was targeting Ukraine and then it got out.
 
I've taken to spreading my data files among a few separate external hard drives, and plugging in only the ones I need at the moment. Not an option for a corporation, obviously, but for me it works well. I figure I can re-format and re-install my OS and programs easy enough, if necessary, but replacing data files is a PITA even with back-ups.

Note: I do back-ups, too, just do this as an added layer of caution.
 
Cardinal said:
A theory I've heard is that this was a Russian cyberattack, which makes sense when you consider the initial target.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/technology/ransomware-hackers.html

Cyberwar was something we'd always known was coming, but it was unclear what it would look like once it was here. I guess the answer is you just wake up on day and say, "Oh, I guess there's a cyberwar going on, then."

What's particularly chilling about cyberwarfare is that you no longer need to be one of the most advanced countries on earth to even do it well. Russia has an economy the size of Italy, and they've been doing nothing but kicking everybody's asses on the digital front.
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Russian are well known for malicious code, probably some of the best in the world, and paid for by Putin. Same as NK who have been pulling money from a number of banks.
An inexpensive and devastating weapon
 
JANFU said:
Russian are well known for malicious code, probably some of the best in the world, and paid for by Putin. Same as NK who have been pulling money from a number of banks.
An inexpensive and devastating weapon
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The vast majority of hack attempts to my blogs come from Russia and Ukraine.
 
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