CERT-MU White Paper: The WannaCry Ransomware

The world has experienced a massive global ransomware cyber-attack known as “WannaCrypt” or “WannaCry” (Ransom: Win32/WannaCrypt) since Friday, May 12 2017. Hundreds of thousands computers worldwide have been hit and affected more than 150 countries. WannaCry is far more dangerous than other common ransomware types because of its ability to spread itself across an organisation’s network by exploiting a critical vulnerability in Windows computers, which was patched by Microsoft in March 2017 (MS17-010). The exploit, known as “Eternal Blue,” was released online in April in the latest of a series of leaks by a group known as the Shadow Brokers, who claimed that it had stolen the data from the Equation cyber espionage group.