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United States
15 May 2017 Cyber security experts said the spread of the worm dubbed WannaCry - "ransomware" that locked up more than 200,000 computers in more than 150 countries - had slowed but that the respite might only be brief amid fears new versions of the worm will strike. Microsoft President Smith appeared to tacitly acknowledge what researchers had already widely concluded: the ransomware attack leveraged a hacking tool, built by the U.S. National Security Agency, that leaked online in April. "This is an emerging pattern in 2017," Smith wrote. "We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world." U.S. President Trump ordered his homeland security adviser, Bossert, to convene an "emergency meeting" to assess the threat posed by the global attack. Microsoft released patches to fix a vulnerability that allowed the worm to spread across networks, a rare and powerful feature that caused infections to surge. Code for exploiting that bug, which is known as "Eternal Blue," was released on the internet last month by a hacking group known as the Shadow Brokers. Account addresses hard-coded into the malicious WannaCry virus appear to show the attackers had received just under $32,500 in anonymous bitcoin currency as of 1100 GMT on Sunday, but that amount could rise as more victims rush to pay ransoms of $300 or more. The threat receded over the weekend after a British-based researcher, who declined to give his name but tweets under the profile @MalwareTechBlog, said he stumbled on a way to at least temporarily limit the worm's spread by registering a web address to which he noticed the malware was trying to connect. (Source: Reuters)
May 14, 2017 YouTube is providing a platform for criminals promoting and selling ransomware, the type of malicious software that wreaked havoc in the National Health Services (NHS). Hackers are posting step-by-step guides on YouTube on how to build ransomware. They also provide links to websites where ransomware can be bought for as little as L16, with technical support on how to infect people’s computers. Details of how ransomware is openly promoted and traded on the internet comes after a global cyber-attack hit more than 45,000 organisations in at least 99 countries. Forty-eight NHS organisations were hit, including about 30 hospital trusts. That includes 48 NHS organisations, with commuters, MRI scanners, blood-storage fridges and theatre equipment said to have been hit with the bug. Yahya posted a guide on how to make the virus, while Suddendox posted a video with a link to a site where ransomware can be bought for L16. (Source: TheSundayTimes)
Space
May 15, 2017 One million miles from Earth, a NASA camera is capturing unexpected flashes of light reflecting off our planet. The homeward-facing instrument on NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, launched in 2015, caught hundreds of these flashes over the span of a year. It’s definitely ice, and most likely solar reflection off of horizontally oriented particles. High cirrus clouds, 5 to 8 kilometers where the glints were located. (Source: WhatsUpWithThat): http://tinyurl.com/mhszr5a
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