The ransomware attacked in more than 100 countries, including China, by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in Bitcoin cryptocurrency starting from May 12. The IP addresses of at least 29,372 agencies in China were attacked, mainly in the energy, transportation, medical, education, and science and technology sectors.
“Although the fallout of the WannaCry ransomware has subsided, we cannot take lightly other new cyber worms,” said an official at the National Research Center for Information Technology Security.
Experts disclosed that almost all sectors and enterprises unaffected in this incident adopted risk control ahead of time. A critical patch was issued by Microsoft to remove underlying vulnerabilities for supported systems nearly two months before the attack, though many organizations failed to apply it.
In addition, the concept of network isolation as the most effective method to maintain internet security should be revisited, as intranet without any protective measures would be more vulnerable, experts said.
This article was originally published in the Global Times.
