Massive ransomware attack hits 99 countries
Source: CNN/Money
Cybersecurity firm Avast said it has tracked more than 75,000 attacks in 99 countries. It said the majority of the attacks targeted Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan.
...The ransomware, called "WannaCry," is spread by taking advantage of a Windows vulnerability that Microsoft released a security patch for in March. But computers and networks that haven't updated their systems are at risk. The exploit was leaked last month as part of a trove of NSA spy tools.
"Affected machines have six hours to pay up and every few hours the ransom goes up," said Kurt Baumgartner, the principal security researcher at security firm Kaspersky Lab. "Most folks that have paid up appear to have paid the initial $300 in the first few hours."
Sixteen National Health Service (NHS) organizations in the UK have been hit, and some of those hospitals have canceled outpatient appointments and told people to avoid emergency departments if possible. Spanish telecom company Telefónica was also hit with the ransomware.
Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/12/technology/ransomware-attack-nsa-microsoft/
If you are a Windows user, you may want to check to be sure you've had updates applied since 3/1.
This is a nasty one. I suspect the investigation will be well-supported internationally, and may lead in some interesting directions.
speculatively,
Bright
= new reply since forum marked as read
Good to know.
takes care of that. Although I don't like to hand control of my computer to anyone, I find it prevents things like this from destroying my day. I'm the kind of guy that would ignore all reminders to update. Just like our pResident, I'M JUST TOO BUSY! 
Donald has had, by far, his worst week in office and now a global cyber attack is dominating the news. 
