Why?

Is it a ‘cos I can’ thing, or is there some other reason?

Money. Its ransomware.
So encrypts the files and you have to pay to get the key to unlock them.

I suspect whoever did it though is probably a tad worried about just how successful it has been.

Yep, bricking it if they have any sense. Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies maybe giving someone a “hot” tea if they are lucky or an extended trip to one of their holiday homes if they’re not so lucky.

Buy shares in Microsoft. The NHS will have to migrate their systems to a newer version than XP which is vulnerable to this attack due to lack of support. This will come at great cost of course.

I’m guessing you haven’t read any of the comments of those who know what they’re talking about on the other thread?

Yep, bricking it if they have any sense. Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies maybe giving someone a “hot” tea if they are lucky or an extended trip to one of their holiday homes if they’re not so lucky.

I apologise for my total naivety but what have the Russians & the Chinese have to do with it? Could someone explain in simpletons terms?

*wishes I knew this stuff*

I’m guessing you haven’t read any of the comments of those who know what they’re talking about on the other thread?

I get lost off easily anyway. & no I haven’t.

Edit, just read some of the other post & it may as well have been written in Swahili.

Could someone explain in simpletons terms?

Normally the malware writers have limited risk since its difficult for the average police force to investigate and then since the person is probably overseas there is the hassle of extraditing. There are cases of malware being specifically written to check for certain culture settings (language and so on) and to not infect some machines so they avoid annoying the local law enforcement.
In this case they have managed to get the NHS and the Russian interior ministry amongst others.
Chances are it isnt going to be just the cops investigating but instead various intelligence agencies are going to take a break from going after each other to going after whoever wrote this.
Not the sort of position anyone sensible would want to be in.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/nhs-in-large-scale-it-shutdown

(I’ll keep this thread open as I think it’s a sufficiently different subject / question rather than a duplicate.)

Money. Its ransomware.
So encrypts the files and you have to pay to get the key to unlock them.

This, in a nutshell. Couple of hundred dollars to get your data back (because, y’know, in 2017 who makes backups?)

The NHS will have to migrate their systems to a newer version than XP which is vulnerable to this attack due to lack of support.

I’m reliably informed that XP isn’t actually vulnerable to this – or at least, to its method of spreading. The vulnerability exists of course, but the “remote code execution” code doesn’t work on XP.

They “why” is well summed up by this screenshot of it in action. “Give us $300 and you can have the files on this PC back”

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_obNa4XgAEJcOR.jpg%5B/Img%5D

what have the Russians & the Chinese have to do with it?

Despite the focus on the NHS here, this thing has hit worldwide.

This may help.

https://www.scmagazineuk.com/hospitals-turn-patients-away-as-nhs-caught-up-in-global-ransomware-attack/article/658864/

I’m reliably informed that XP isn’t actually vulnerable to this – or at least, to its method of spreading. The vulnerability exists of course, but the “remote code execution” code doesn’t work on XP.

This is getting into realms technically beyond me, but the NHS’s own comms include XP as an ‘affected platform’.

Well. It may be an affected platform in terms of the malware being able to install itself with user intervention (ooh, a file, let’s open it), but not in terms of it then being vulnerable to a virus-like infection from another infected machine on the network.

Maybe.

Yep, bricking it if they have any sense. Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies maybe giving someone a “hot” tea if they are lucky or an extended trip to one of their holiday homes if they’re not so lucky.

Or a job.

Buy shares in Microsoft

Nope. They will already be being paid handsomely for licences.

What you want is the companies that the government has a proven track record in throwing money at to ‘fix’ things. So shares in Capita, Serco or G4S are probably what you are after. I would say Atos but they are dirty Frenchies, so may not get a look in after the 8th June (who am I kidding).

in layman’s terms, computer viruses are a bit like recreational drugs or std’s. everyone knows its wrong to go skinny dipping, but they risk it. ‘yeah, I forgot to back up my work’ etc, etc. then your PC gets infected. Similarly, running antivirus and restricting user activity isn’t fun, but it helps prevent the spread of malware!