Last Friday, the 12th of may, the Internet drowned in a stream of news about a virus attack. The villain of this story was WannaCry (WnaCrypt0r 2.0) ransomware. It was the biggest attack attempted recently. According to a report from Avast, Internet security service, cases of infection with this malicious software were registered in 99 countries. The countries that suffered the most were Russia, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
The scale of this attack is marked by the fact that not only home-users became victims of it, but also entire companies, organisations, and departments. In the UK, NHS was affected to the extent that dozens of hospitals were not able to operate normally. The waiting hours were extended and urgent care was delayed. Nevertheless, Teresa May commented the occasion saying that there is no evidence of loss of sensitive data or exposure of important medical data. However, whether affected data had reserved copies or not is unclear. We just have to hope that the absence of evidence is not caused by inefficiency of the investigation.
Outside of the UK, virus affected the largest railroad operator in Germany, Deutsche Bahn, and automobile manufacturers such as Renault and Nissan. WannaCry penetrated ATMs in China, Spain, and Portugal. Other counties could not avoid the attack as well.
Unfortunately, the only way to recover from such attack is to restore data from a backup. Paying the offender is commonly discouraged, as you will be only supporting future criminal activity. You can get help with backup and disaster recovery from London IT Support.