Over 57,000 Wana Decrypt0r infections detected
CERT Spain and security researchers at MalwareTech have confirmed Kafeine’s original finding. The latter even created a live map showing new Wana Decrypt0r ransomeware’s victims infected in real time.
Whoever is behind this ransomware has invested heavy resource into Wana Decrypt0r’s operations. In the few hours this ransomwares has been active, it has made many high-profile victims all over the world. According to Avast security researcher Jakub Kroustek, Wana Decrypt0rs made over 57,000 victims in just a few hour.
Some of the first victims were Spanish company, such as Telefonica — a telco provider, Gas Naturals — a natural gas provider, and Iberdrola — an electric utility providers.
Later in the day, the wave of Wana Decrypt0r infection spread to the UK, where it hit a large number of hospitals and clinics. UK’s the National Health Services issued an alert on the attacks earlier today.
Details of patient record data and appointment schedules, as well as internal phone lines and email, have all been rendered inaccessible.
NHS Digital said: “A number of NHS organization have reported to NHS Digital that they have been affected by a ransomware attacks which is affecting a number of different organizations.
“The investigation is at an early stage but we believe the malware variant is Wanna Decryptor. At this stage, we do not have any evidences that patient data has been accessed. We will continue to work with affected organizations to confirm this in some time.
“NHS Digital is working closely with the National Cyber Security Centres, the Department of Health and NHS England to support affected organizations and to recommend appropriate mitigation.
“This attack was not specifically targeted at the NHS and is affecting organizations from across a range of sector.
“Our focus is on supporting organizations to manage the big incident swiftly and decisively, but we will continue to communications with NHS colleagues and will share more information as it becomes available.”
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