The virus of mass destruction: how to survive the global cyber attack
By Prempal Singh
The global map of infection with the computer virus WannaCry looked like the beginning of the Third World War. Our world was incredibly vulnerable. Everyone became a target of cyberprostranes. And this attack is clearly not the last. From now on our things can become our enemies. An expert on NTV, Igor Vittel, is discussing what to do and whether there is salvation.
Everything that the cyber bolsheviks talked about for so long took place on May 12, 2017, and the already widespread spread of the extortion virus called WannaCrybecame avalanche-like.
The virus quickly spread around the world from Taiwan to the US, and already about a hundred countries were among the victims. Most of all, so far, computers in the US, Russia and Ukraine have suffered. And the virus uses the tools that cybercriminals once stole from hackers from the NSA. The funniest and worst thing at the same time is that the virus is not new at all – in March, Microsoft released another “patch” to its operating system. And how did it happen that still hundreds of thousands of computers, including computers of state institutions and large corporations were infected? The answer is simple and scary to obscene – no one even scratched to install updates, and in England some computers were almost Margaret Thatcher era, with the appropriate software.
When we see zombies at the cinema, we do not take zombie protection measures in real life, we just do not get it – probably because we do not hear every day in the news about zombie attacks or the Martians’ invasion. But we hear daily in the news about cyberterrorists and international gangs of hackers. So why do we show the same carelessness as in the case of mythical zombies? Maybe because we do not realize the real scope of the threat?
In recent years, only officially registered the number of cybercrime is growing by about 50-60 percent per year. And one of the reasons for this is the huge number of errors in the software. After all, programs are written by living people who are prone to make mistakes. On average, there are 20-30 errors in programs per program line. In any modern device that uses software, millions of lines of code. It turns out that in any of these devices there are hundreds of thousands of errors, and although not all of them can be a security problem, almost all of them can be used to intercept, for example, computer, machine, Principle of anything. Have you heard about the Internet of things? Now imagine what the Internet of the captured things is.
We need to realize that cyberattacks today are weapons of mass destruction, and if it took decades and hundreds of scientists with a world name to create an atomic bomb, now 5-6 teenagers can completely turn off the energy or water supply of any country, practically not Leaving traces that the effect may be worse than nuclear weapons. The fact that this has not happened so far is really a miracle. Apparently, the hackers did not get their hands, because with the protection of industrial facilities, according to many security experts, things are even worse than with the protection of conventional computer networks,
What should I do? First, do not panic. Personal computers can be fully protected with antivirus and timely updates, and the virus that today walks around the planet, until it destroys the data, but only blocks the computer and extorts money.Secondly, it remains to be hoped that at the level of states and major corporations, protection is performed better than we imagine. And thirdly, remember that the rules of computer security are similar to the rules of sexual security. Be protected and deal only with regular, trusted partners.
By the way, by 2019 we in Russia should completely get rid of paperwork. Are we sure that protection from hackers will be adequate? Maybe it’s better so long as the beam and goose feather, in the old-fashioned way?