Blog

WannaCry? Don’tCry! Use NetCare™

It’s all over the news, and no one really knows what may happen today, tomorrow or next month with the WannaCry Ransomware virus hitting systems all over the world.

As reported at ZDNet.com on Sunday, “the global ransomware attack that caused chaos could spring back to life again as workers return to the office, experts have warned.”

Further, it reported, “the lightning spread of the WannaCrypt ransomware attack was felt worldwide last week, causing problems for thousands of private and public sector organizations across dozens of countries on Friday, and forced hospitals in the UK to cancel treatment and resort to pen and paper. The ransomware has also caused problems in Germany, Russia, the US, and Spain.”

Are you immune? Probably not. It appears no one may be 100% immune to malware of this sophistication.

Could you be better prepared? If you are not already taking advantage of Netcare™, our full-lifecycle approach to IT systems management, the answer is a definitive “yes, you could be better prepared.”

With NetCare™, we assist our clients in building, operating and guarding systems from the ground up. For example, WannaCry was able to penetrate systems using Windows XP, and because it is no longer a supported operating systems, was not patched for XP until today. NetCare™ Plan employs proactive replacement of unsupported products. Our lifecycle customers have already retired XP. So, no problem.

NetCare™ Operate offers proactive patch installation. Again, we would be on the problem as soon as it hit, and not after problems started to arise.

Simple steps you can take today as we continue to watch this unfold:

  • Don’t click unknown attachments.
  • Exercise some basic awareness about the problem.
  • Take the threats seriously.

And, as our senior engineer Bill Wade put it, “don’t assume because you are a cow in the middle of the herd that no one wants your beef.”

0