Quote:Most cyberattacks are fairly mundane. In the worst cases, the user sees an on-screen ransom demand explaining that the computer is encrypted and can be unlocked after payment. Oftentimes, however, nothing visible happens at all — many types of malware act as surreptitiously as possible to maximize data theft before being spotted.

But with some cyberattacks, their scale or sophistication cannot fail to attract attention. This post is dedicated to the five most spectacular and notorious cyberattacks of the last decade.

WannaCry: A real epidemic

The WannaCry attack put ransomware, and computer malware in general, on everyone’s map, even those who don’t know a byte from a bite. Using exploits from the Equation Group hacking team that were made publicly available by the Shadow Brokers, the attackers created a monstrosity — a ransomware encryptor able to spread quickly over the Internet and local networks.

The four-day WannaCry epidemic knocked out more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries. This included critical infrastructure: In some hospitals, WannaCry encrypted all devices, including medical equipment, and some factories were forced to stop production. Among recent attacks, WannaCry is the most far-reaching.

See here for more details about WannaCry, and here and here for business aspects of the epidemic. Incidentally, WannaCry is still out there, endangering the world’s computers. To find out how to configure Windows to stay protected, read this post.

Full reading: https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/five-most-notorious-cyberattacks/24506/