Thread: Cyber attack spreads across 12 countries

Originally Posted by posylady

Why would the NSA have something called ransom wear? NSA need to be shut down.

It doesn't. Ransomware is a generic name for any malware which asks for money to restore the affected computer. This particular program incorporated code from the NSA to exploit a known bug in SMBv1 processing in order to gain entry to the computer. Here is a more detailed description http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2017/05/wannacry.html. Here are Microsoft's instructions on how to turn off SMBv1 in order to prevent this exploit https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/.../ms17-010.aspx. Here is a real time map showing newly discovered affected computers https://intel.malwaretech.com/WannaCrypt.html.