May 12 will mark the second anniversary of the WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm attack. It was a troubling time: During the four-day long ordeal, the cryptoworm infected more than 300,000 endpoints among 200,000 separate victims throughout 150 countries. It propagated rapidly through the EternalBlue exploit — an exploit that took advantage of a flaw in Windows’ Server Message Block protocol. Tellingly, those who applied Microsoft’s April patches, and were running currently supported versions of Windows, were not affected by the attack.
Those who were hit by the WannaCry ransomware found themselves in great pains. Their systems and data had been encrypted on them, and they would remain encrypted, unless a demand for payment, typically $300 to $600 worth of bitcoin, was met.