Ransomware attacks reported on Windows machines internationally

Actually the UK government has one system incapable of being hacked electronically - all Acts of Parliament must be written on vellum.
- calf or goat skin.

Why is the UK still printing its laws on vellum? - BBC News

Now, just consider- how many of your files will be accessible and readable by anything in, say, 900 years?

But with BREXIT, there will be a vast amount of legislation.... so maybe I'll buy shares in vellum manufacturers!

Is there a way to tell if you have the patch?

The worm that spreads WanaCrypt0r

Posted: May 12, 2017 by Zammis Clark
Something that many security researchers have feared has indeed come true. Threat actors have integrated a critical exploit taking advantage of a popular communication protocol used by Windows systems, crippling thousands of computers worldwide with ransomware.
Within hours of being leveraged, a flaw that had been recently patched by Microsoft has been used to distribute the WanaCrypt0r ransomware and wreak havoc worldwide.
In this blog post, we will describe the worm responsible for spreading this ransomware by looking at its capabilities and what has made this threat so successful.
Main functionality

WanaCrypt0r has been most effective—not only does the ransomware loop through every open RDP session on a system and run the ransomware as that user, but the initial component that gets dropped on systems appears to be a worm that contains and runs the ransomware, spreading itself using the ETERNALBLUE SMB vulnerability (MS17-010).
The WinMain of this executable first tries to connect to the website http://www.iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgos...ewrwergwea.com. It doesn’t actually download anything there, just tries to connect. If the connection succeeds, the binary exits.
This was probably some kind of kill switch or anti-sandbox technique. Whichever it is, it has backfired on the authors of the worm, as the domain has been sinkholed and the host in question now resolves to an IP address that hosts a website. Therefore, nothing will happen on any new systems that runs the executable. This only applies to the binary with the hash listed above; there may well be new versions released in the future.

read more at:

The worm that spreads WanaCrypt0r - Malwarebytes Labs | Malwarebytes Labs

MS Patch for SMB1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support:

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010 - Critical

Seems systems from Vista onwards are affected, so the XP speculation is pointless.

jimbo45 said:

In a busy hospital where there nearly always is 100% Chaos - people don't notice things like a computer say in a back small room which might only be mainly used for office supplies or monitoring Laundry requirements etc.

No, there's no money for spare computers in back small rooms, and if there's a small back room, it's somebody's office, so the PC is not spare. If it's networked then there's a logon, so there's an audit trail.

Political will is an important factor in this issue - the London Government is responsible for the NHS in England and are in favour a private medical system, and a lack of IT resource causes this failure,

In Wales where the Devolved government is given responsibility for the running of the NHS, and is in favour of a Publicly funded NHS, the Welsh NHS IT system appears to be much better funded, and the Windows 7 (mainly ) based system are unaffected.

Indeed Since this attack has started the IT system has sent me several electronic reminders for upcoming appointments - I've had two this morning

swarfega said:

Is there a way to tell if you have the patch?

If you have W10 and Updates are up to date you are protected.....it was included with monthly Malicious Software Removal Tool.

There is a lot of good info on it here - 74 countries hit by NSA-powered WannaCrypt ransomware backdoor: Emergency fixes emitted by Microsoft for WinXP+ • The Register