It's on track to be one of the biggest recorded ransomware attacks ever, with tens of thousands of infected computers in nearly 100 countries.
Friday's attack largely hit businesses and large organizations: UK hospitals, a Spanish telecom, FedEx, the Russian Interior Ministry. But how much do individuals need to worry about their personal computers being targeted?
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that takes over a computer and locks the user out, preventing them from accessing any files until they pay money. This particular program, called WannaCry, asks for about $300, though the price increases over time.
WannaCry takes advantage of a Windows flaw discovered by the NSA and made public by hackers in April. Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) did release a patch for the vulnerability in March. But computers and networks that didn't update their systems were still at risk.
On Friday, a security researcher inadvertently created a "kill switch" to help stop the spread of this ransomware. However, a hacker could rewrite the code to omit the kill switch and start trying to infect new machines with a new version of it.
Friday's attack largely hit businesses and large organizations: UK hospitals, a Spanish telecom, FedEx, the Russian Interior Ministry. But how much do individuals need to worry about their personal computers being targeted?
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that takes over a computer and locks the user out, preventing them from accessing any files until they pay money. This particular program, called WannaCry, asks for about $300, though the price increases over time.
WannaCry takes advantage of a Windows flaw discovered by the NSA and made public by hackers in April. Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) did release a patch for the vulnerability in March. But computers and networks that didn't update their systems were still at risk.
On Friday, a security researcher inadvertently created a "kill switch" to help stop the spread of this ransomware. However, a hacker could rewrite the code to omit the kill switch and start trying to infect new machines with a new version of it.
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