Ransomware strikes British hospitals.

Friday’s ransomware attack infected computer networks of at least 40 British National Health System hospitals. Administrators suspended non-emergency operations. They also are diverting ambulances.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the Helsinki-based cybersecurity company F-Secure, called the attack “the biggest ransomware outbreak in history.” This is a cyber pandemic caused by a ransomware weapon of mass destruction. In the Jan 3 issue of CyberheistNews, we predicted that 2017 would be the year where we’d see a ransomworm like this. Unfortunately, it’s here.

The First Thing To Do: E-mail Your Users.

I suggest you send the following to your employees, friends, and family. Feel free to copy, paste, and/or edit:

You may have seen the news this weekend. Criminal hackers have released a new strain of ransomware that spreads itself automatically across all workstations in a network.  This created a global epidemic. If you or a co-worker are not paying attention and accidentally open one of these phishing email attachments, you might infect not only your own workstation, but everyone else’s computer too.

Be very careful when you get an email with an attachment you did not request. If there is a .zip file in the attachment, do not click on it but delete the whole email. Remember: “When in doubt, throw it out!”

When you see a suspicious email, delete it.

Banks, Trains and Automobiles.

Hundreds of thousands of machines are infected worldwide. This includes those at FedEx Corp, Renault, Nissan, the German Railways and Telefonica. The ransomware infected 85% of their systems.

The strain is called “Wana Decrypt0r.” It asks $300 from victims to decrypt their computers. This monster has infected hundreds of thousands of systems in more than 150 countries.

Do not blindly click links in e-mail. Rather, move the mouse pointer over the link to reveal where the link would take you. If it is honest and safe, you may then click it.

Adapted from https://blog.knowbe4.com/ransomware-attack-uses-nsa-0-day-exploits-to-go-on-worldwide-rampage.