Been hacked? Just because you paid the $300 ransom doesn’t mean you’ll get your data back.
The White House said that less than $70,000 had been paid in ransom in the “WannaCry” cyber attack and that so far, there are no instances where payment has led to the recovery of data.
According to a White House spokesperson, about 150 countries had been affected by the attack and more than 300,000 machines infected.
Malay Mail and The Star both reported instances where Malaysian businesses were hit. Not much details were reported regarding the companies that were hit.
Cybersecurity researchers have found evidence that link North Korea with the WannaCry cyber attack. A researcher from South Korea’s Hauri Labs said on Tuesday their own findings matched those of Symantec and Kaspersky Lab, both noting that some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry software had also appeared in programs used by the Lazarus Group, identified by some researchers as a North Korea-run hacking operation.
The Lazarus hackers was said to be responsible for the theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank; while United States accused it of being behind a cyber attack on Sony Pictures in 2014.
WannaCry demanded ransoms starting at $300, in line with many cyber extortion campaigns, which keep pricing low so more victims will pay.
The countries most affected by WannaCry to date are Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine and India, according to Avast.
The number of infections has fallen dramatically since Friday’s peak when more than 9,000 computers were being hit per hour.
