Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/world/europe/uk-national-health-service-cyberattack.html
An extensive cyberattack struck computers across a wide swath of Europe and Asia on Friday, and strained the public health system in Britain, where doctors were blocked from patient files and emergency rooms were forced to divert patients.
The attack involved ransomware, a kind of malware that encrypts data and locks out the user. According to security experts, it exploited a vulnerability that was discovered and developed by the National Security Agency.
The hacking tool was leaked by a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers, which has been dumping stolen N.S.A. hacking tools online beginning last year. Microsoft rolled out a patch for the vulnerability last March, but hackers took advantage of the fact that vulnerable targets — particularly hospitals — had yet to update their systems.
The attack on the National Health Service seemed perhaps the most audacious of the attacks, because it had life-or-death implications for hospitals and ambulance services.
On social media, several images circulated showing computer screens bearing a message that the user could not enter without first paying a $300 ransom in Bitcoin. Many doctors reported that they could not retrieve their patients’ files.
