“There’s a bunch of head scratchers involved in this particular attack,” said Caleb Barlow Vice
President of Security at IBM when interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme at 8.43 this morning.
There is understanding of how the malware spreads once the first device, “Patient Zero” has been infected, allowing the ransomware to break-in to the system. But it is less clear as to how this first device is initially attacked.
Added to this, the motivation for many ransomware attacks is financial. But its estimated that this attack, despite its global spread has only netted about $60,000.
More recently there has been chatter regarding the coding in WannaCry being tracked back to a cyber-criminal team known as the Lazarus Group who in turn are reputed to have links to the North Korean regime?
So, just like Alice’s statement in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, this global ransomware attack just gets “curiouser and curiouser?”
But whatever its origins and motivation and we may never know the true facts behind it, lets hope we can be grateful for one thing? The global media coverage over the last few days has raised awareness of the growing trend in cyber-crime. Hopefully organisations, businesses and individuals will sit up and take notice, and pay attention to their cyber security? If not, (as Alice said of the Mad Hatter) “you’re entirely bonkers!”
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