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c0lo [soylentnews.org] writes:

(while merging, maybe it worth sanitizing the comments in the prev story. Yeap, that one with "Woowaa! Woowaa! There's a cyber-attack!!! Change the lightbulb!!!!!" it's childish and there's no information into it)

Australian Brodcast Corporation reports [abc.net.au] - 2 hours ago

'Biggest ransomware outbreak in history' hits nearly 100 countries with data held for ransom

A global cyberattack has hit international shipper FedEx, disrupted Britain's health system and infected computers in nearly 100 countries.

The ransomware attack hit Britain's health service, forcing affected hospitals to close wards and emergency rooms with related attacks also reported in Spain, Portugal and Russia.
...
It [the atack] is believed to have exploited a vulnerability purportedly identified for use by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and later leaked to the internet.
...
Private security firms identified the ransomware as a new variant of "WannaCry"[pt] that had the ability to automatically spread across large networks by exploiting a known bug in Microsoft's Windows operating system.
...
Leading international shipper FedEx Corp said it was one of the companies whose system was infected with the malware that security firms said was delivered via spam emails.

"Like many other companies, FedEx is experiencing interference with some of our Windows-based systems caused by malware," the company said in a statement.

Only a small number of US-headquartered organisations were infected because the hackers appear to have begun the campaign by targeting organisations in Europe, a research manager with security software maker Symantec said.

By the time they turned their attention to US organisations, spam filters had identified the new threat and flagged the ransomware-laden emails as malicious, Vikram Thakur said.

Massive, Fast-moving Cyberattack Hits 74 Countries [wltx.com] - 5 hours ago

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