Leaked NSA exploit blamed for global ransomware cyberattack

‘A zero-day vulnerability tool, covertly exploited by US intelligence agencies and exposed by the Shadow Brokers hacking group has been blamed for the massive spread of malware that infected tens of thousands of computer systems globally.
The ransomware virus which extorts Windows users by blocking their personal files and demanding payment to restore access, allegedly exploits a vulnerability that was discovered and concealed for future use by the National Security Agency (NSA), according to a range of security experts.
“Our analysis indicates the attack, dubbed “WannaCry”, is initiated through an SMBv2 remote code execution in Microsoft Windows. This exploit (codenamed “EternalBlue”) has been made available on the internet through the Shadowbrokers dump on April 14th, 2017,” Russian cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab, wrote in a blog post about the attack.
Although Microsoft had already patched the backdoor roughly a month before it became public, many users who did not install the latest security updates seem to have become the primary victims of the attack.’
Read more: Leaked NSA exploit blamed for global ransomware cyberattack