White House said on Monday that more than $70,000 has been already paid in a WanaCryptor ransomware attack. Tom Bossert, White House Homeland Security Adviser said at a daily briefing “We are not aware of payments that have led to any data recovery”
WanaCry Ransomware: More Than $70,000 Has Been Paid So Far!
Earlier this year the hacking group ‘The Shadow Brokers’ decided to give away the hacking tools that were stolen from the NSA for free. Well, the tools can be used to hack computers running on Microsoft Windows.
The malicious software WanaCryptor 2.0 which is also known as WCry is now being used to carry out one of the biggest ransomware attacks of its kind. Visit this link to know everything about WanaCrypt0r Ransomware.
Security researchers at Avast have recorded over 57,000 detections of WanaCryptor 2.0 ransomware in 99 countries. Let me tell you, after the attack, the ransom being demanded is $300 worth of bitcoins.
Let me tell you, White House said on Monday that more than $70,000 has been already paid in a WanaCryptor ransomware attack. Tom Bossert, White House Homeland Security Adviser said at a daily briefing:
“We are not aware of payments that have led to any data recovery”. The attack has almost infected 300,000 machines in more than 100 countries. However, the good news is “the infection rates have slowed over the weekend.”
The security adviser further said that there are currently three versions of WanaCryptor ransomware affecting the computers. HHowever, applying the patch provided by Microsoft will help protect against all these variants.
Previously Brad Smith, President and chief legal officer at Microsoft, called the government to take this issue seriously and pointed that agencies should no longer create a “Stockpile of vulnerabilities” instead they should report them to the vendor.
On this Bossert argued, “This was a vulnerability exploit as one part of a much larger tool that was put together by the culpable parties and not by the US government, This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data.”
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