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The ransomware attacks that forced hospitals across the UK to turn away patients are apparently part of a larger wave of ransomware infections worldwide.
As well as the UK, where the ransomware infections have resulted in NHS trusts cancelling operations, the fallout is being felt around the globe, particularly in Spain.
Spanish communications giant Telefonica said that a cybersecurity incident had affected the PCs of some employees on the company's internal corporate network.
According to Spanish newspaper El Pais other firms in the country have also been affected.
Spain's national CERT warned of a "massive attack of ransomware" and said the ransomware's potency resulted from it exploiting a known software flaw called EternalBlue.
This is a Windows flaw that was part of an hoard of software vulnerabilities apparently collected by the NSA - but leaked by the so-called Shadow Brokers...
Read more: Ransomware attacks reported internationally | ZDNet
See also: Hospitals across the UK hit by ransomware cyber attack, systems knocked offline | ZDNet
Update: WannaCrypt ransomware worm targets out-of-date systems Windows Security
Update: BBC is reporting that similar attacks are being reported in the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Taiwan today.
Heart surgery cancelled:
NHS cyber attack: 'My heart surgery was cancelled' - BBC News
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And there's a new nasty being distributed by email attachment too...
New Ransomware 'Jaff' Spotted; Malware Groups Pushing 5M Emails Per Hour To Circulate It - Slashdot
This still makes the news? IT guys know about it and they know how to easily prevent it, but since those infected organisations lack money and thus a proper IT support, this will keep happening, until they realize, how important is IT and that infected computers will result in a bigger profit loss, not to mention reputation.
Unfortunately some companies still think its cheaper to pay the ransom than set up proper IT and security support.
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