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Sean Brian Townsend is an independent researcher in the field of information and computer security, a member and the spokesman of the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance. He explains how Kaspersky Lab and the FSB hacked and leaked the secret NSA tools under the guise of The Shadow Brokers hacker group. These leaks became the origin of WannaCry, NotPetya, and BadRabbit ransomware attacks. The editors of InformNapalm may not share the opinions of the authors in the [opinion] section, and does not alter the original style of the articles. Antivirus software – myths and reality The activities of antivirus (AV) companies are...

It was late afternoon on May 12, 2017. Two exhausted security researchers could barely unpack the events of what had just happened. Marcus Hutchins and Jamie Hankins, who were working from their homes in the U.K. for Los Angeles-based cybersecurity company Kryptos Logic, had just stopped a global cyberattack dead in its tracks. Hours earlier, WannaCry ransomware began to spread like wildfire, encrypting systems and crippling businesses and transport hubs across Europe. It was the first time in a decade a computer worm began attacking computers on a massive scale. The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) was one of the...

[dayglored's note: This is direct from the horse's mouth, Microsoft Technet. It's a bad one, like the WannaCry malware from a couple years ago.] Today [May 14] Microsoft released fixes for a critical Remote Code Execution vulnerability, CVE-2019-0708, in Remote Desktop Services – formerly known as Terminal Services – that affects some older versions of Windows. The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) itself is not vulnerable. This vulnerability is pre-authentication and requires no user interaction. In other words, the vulnerability is ‘wormable’, meaning that any future malware that exploits this vulnerability could propagate from vulnerable computer to vulnerable computer in a...

According to a recent article in the New York Times, aerospace giant Boeing was hit by WannaCry. WannaCry is particularly insidious for two reasons. First, the payload itself, known as “Eternal Blue”, was designed by none other than the NSA. Secondly, North Korea used Eternal Blue to build a worm – meaning that WannaCry can propagate itself through a network without human interaction.

ATLANTA -- City officials say Atlanta is dealing with a cyberattack that is holding internal systems hostage using ransomware, CBS affiliate WGCL-TV reports. The attack caused outages on several computer systems.

Kaspersky no longer legal on US public sector networks President Trump has signed into law an order banning the use of Kaspersky Lab products within US government organisations. For months, government officials have been clearing the Moscow-based cyber security company's products from the networks of US federal agencies, a task that is now more-or-less completed. Kaspersky has been accused of allowing its anti-virus software to be used by Russian intelligence to exfiltrate information from the PCs of US government officials, although little evidence has been presented to back-up such claims. The ban is included in a new defense policy spending...

... after careful investigation, the U.S. today publicly attributes the massive “WannaCry” cyberattack to North Korea. The attack spread indiscriminately across the world in May. It encrypted and rendered useless hundreds of thousands of computers in hospitals, schools,

The Central Intelligence Agency apparently didn’t trust its partners in the American intelligence and created a fake software update to steal their data. Part of an internal project called ExpressLane, the bogus update was installed by the CIA Office of Technical Service (OTS) agents purported to be upgrading the biometric collection system.This biometric system was installed at the “liaison services” that included National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Intelligence. The agency reportedly installed these at partner offices around the world to gain biometric data that was collected by the other agencies. The scathing revelation...

For a quick minute, it looked as though a strain of ransomware that was seemingly stolen from the United States National Security Agency (NSA) was going to be a major problem for PCs around the world, and in particular Windows XP systems. Microsoft even made the unusual move of releasing an emergency patch for Windows XP even though it stopped supporting the legacy OS a long time ago. But now a week after the initial WannaCry outbreak it's been discovered that Windows 7 PCs were the hardest hit. A researcher for Kaspersky Lab posted a message on Twitter saying "the...

The so-called WannaCry virus once again placed the cyberactivities of the U.S. National Security Agency in a global controversy. Experts criticized the spy agency for not only developing a dangerous tool to exploit a vulnerability in Windows computers, but also letting it fall into the hands of criminals. ... After surfacing Friday, the attack continued to gather momentum. “I don’t see how it’s going to end,” said Phil Lieberman, president of Lieberman Software. “There’s this list of problems with security that have gone on for the last 10 or 15 years that weren’t fixed and that people didn’t take seriously....