An alert researcher, teamwork helped stem huge cyberattack

In a blog post Saturday, MalwareTech explained he learned on Friday that networks across Britain’s health system had been hit by ransomware, tipping him off that “this was something big.”

He began analyzing a sample of the malicious software and noticed its code included a hidden web address that wasn’t registered. He said he “promptly” registered the domain, something he regularly does to try to discover ways to track or stop malicious software.

Across an ocean, Darien Huss, a 28-year-old research engineer for the cybersecurity firm Proofpoint, was doing his own analysis. The western Michigan resident said he noticed the authors of the malware had left in a feature known as a kill switch. Huss took a screen shot of his discovery and shared it on Twitter.

Soon he and MalwareTech were communicating about what they’d found: That registering the domain name and redirecting the attacks to the server of Kryptos Logic had activated the kill switch, halting the ransomware’s infections.

Huss and others were calling MalwareTech a hero on Saturday, with Huss adding that the global cybersecurity community was working “as a team” to stop the infections from spreading.

“The ‘hero’ is a bit strong,” MalwareTech said Sunday. “I sort of did what I could.”

Both said they were concerned the authors of the malware could re-release it without a kill switch or with a better one, or that copycats could mimic the attack.

“I think it is concerning that we could definitely see a similar attack occur, maybe in the next 24 to 48 hours or maybe in the next week or two,” Huss said. “It could be very possible.”

Who perpetrated this wave of attacks remains unknown. This is already believed to be the biggest online extortion attack ever recorded, disrupting services in nations as diverse as the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Spain and India.

Europol, Europe’s policing agency, called the attack unprecedented and said computers in more than 150 countries have been affected. Two security firms — Kaspersky Lab and Avast —said Russia was hit hardest.

These hackers “have caused enormous amounts of disruption— probably the biggest ransomware cyberattack in history,” said Graham Cluley, a veteran of the anti-virus industry in Oxford, England.

In Russia, government agencies insisted that all attacks had been resolved. Russian Interior Ministry, which runs the national police, said the problem had been “localized” with no information compromised. Russia’s health ministry said its attacks were “effectively repelled.”

The ransomware exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that was purportedly identified by the U.S. National Security Agency for its own intelligence-gathering purposes. Hackers said they stole the tools from the NSA and dumped them on the internet.

___

Sara Burnett reported from Chicago.

Sara Burnett And Sylvia Hui, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

An alert researcher, teamwork helped stem huge cyberattack

What's Trending