Cybersecurity firm Avast said it tracked more than 75,000 ransomware attacks in 99 countries on Friday.
It said the majority of the attacks targeted Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan. But hospitals in the U.K., and global firms like Fedex (FDX) also reported they had come under assault.
What is it?
The ransomware, called "WannaCry," locks down all the files on an infected computer and asks the computer's administrator to pay in order to regain control of them. The exploit was leaked last month as part of a trove of NSA spy tools.
The ransomware is spread by taking advantage of a Windows vulnerability that Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) released a security patch for in March. But computers and networks that hadn't updated their systems were still at risk.
In the wake of the attack, Microsoft said it had taken the "highly unusual step" of releasing a patch for computers running older operating systems including Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2003.
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It said the majority of the attacks targeted Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan. But hospitals in the U.K., and global firms like Fedex (FDX) also reported they had come under assault.
What is it?
The ransomware, called "WannaCry," locks down all the files on an infected computer and asks the computer's administrator to pay in order to regain control of them. The exploit was leaked last month as part of a trove of NSA spy tools.
The ransomware is spread by taking advantage of a Windows vulnerability that Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) released a security patch for in March. But computers and networks that hadn't updated their systems were still at risk.
In the wake of the attack, Microsoft said it had taken the "highly unusual step" of releasing a patch for computers running older operating systems including Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2003.
Read More
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