Microsoft Releases Patches for WannaCry Ransomware
The WannaCry ransomware has wrecked havoc across the world. Europol and cyber experts have termed this attack as unprecedented. WannaCry – also known as WannaCrypt, Wanna Decryptor, and WanaCrypt0r 2.0, is a virus that combines a ransomware and a worm – a cryptoworm or cryptovirus. WannaCry exploits the Server Message Block 1.0 (SMBv1) vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows operating system. The ransomware is believed to have spread through phishing attacks as malicious attachments or links. Once the system is infected, it can spread to other systems on the same network as well as randomly to other computers exploiting a file-sharing vulnerability in Windows. The malware reads the files on the hard disk, encrypts them and deletes the original files. This encrypted data cannot be decrypted without the key, yet. Microsoft had issued a patch – Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010 – Critical Security Update for Microsoft Windows SMB Server (4013389) – in March 2017, for operating syst