Microsoft released patch on March 13, 2017 to fix this on all supported OS versions!
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms17-010.aspxThis means, people who pay ransom are noobs and:
a) never did a backup. Just one image of C: drive plus rar/zip whatever, of data drives, per MONTH would have been needed (at 20% of the cost, for a nice Acronis or Ghost imaging tool)
and
b) badly neglected Windows updates or, even worse, use unsupported old Windows version
I look at it as a penalty for stupidity....
WORST THING IT MAKES BTC LOOK BAD!!!
The joke is that they can pay so much for doctors in the healthcare system but not to secure their IT infrastructure.
A good IT person has a very important role in the hospital system it's a playground where they can mod efficiency XD.
Got that trash on my PC yesterday. I just laughed, did a full format and a quick reinstall of Windows. I strive to keep my PC as empty and free of important stuff as possible, and this finally paid off! I gotta say I'm kinda proud. Shame about my collection of porn though
Would have tried a linux boot just to see what porn was encrypted out of curiosity ha-ha
Most of the affected systems had Windows XP (perhaps more than 90%). It was quite irresponsible from the part of Microsoft to end their support for Windows XP. The severity of this particular attack could have been significantly reduced if there was support.
I agree, Win XP was working nicely and they should provide support, at least for critical fixes!
I'm glad that it forced them to do an XP patch though
https://askubuntu.com/questions/914623/microsofts-wanna-cry-ransomware-possible-impact-on-linux-usersMay 13th, 2017 Update 2 Today Microsoft took the extraordinary step of releasing a patch for Windows XP which has been off of support for 3 years.
No word if wine is doing anything about a security update. It was reported in a comment below that Linux can be infected too when users run wine.
An "accidental hero" registered a domain name that acted as a kill-switch to the ransomware. I presume the non-existant domain was used by the hackers on their private intranet so they didn't infect themselves. Next time they will be smarter so don't rely on this current kill-switch. Installing the Microsoft patch, which prevents exploiting a vulnerability in the SMBv1 protocol, is the best method.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/13/15635006/microsoft-windows-xp-security-patch-wannacry-ransomware-attack-
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/finding-kill-switch-stop-spread-ransomware-0Cancel switch AN HERO Appeared from a sinkhole flub XD