Again, a virus is infecting Windows computers all over the world.
Unfortunately this type of ransom ware is not only infecting the computer where it was initially started, by using a vulnerability of Windows, it will distribute over the network.
Protect your devices
Please follow these advises to prevent an outbreak:
- Allow your Windows PC to install the latest updates, and also reboot when asked!
- To safeguard against such ransom ware infection, you should always be suspicious of uninvited documents and links sent by email and should never click on links inside those documents unless verifying the source.
- Make sure, you do backups of important local files to network drives or use our ISTCloud (https://seafile.ist.ac.at) to sync such files to the server.
- Make sure, your virus scan software is up to date, our ESET tool will update automatically, and if you want to check if everything is OK, just double-click on the
icon on your task bar, and everything should be green:
We will take additional countermeasures to protect computers from infecting each other. This might break some connections between PCs (only Windows file sharing!), if you encounter such issue, or any other irregularities, please report as soon as possible to: it@ist.ac.at.
Information and patches by Microsoft
Microsoft has published more information at:
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2017/05/12/customer-guidance-for-wannacrypt-attacks/
Windows XP
Windows XP is not officially supported now for about 3 years, but Microsoft released a fix for this issue because of criticality of this bug:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55245
Other Windows versions
For supported Windows systems (Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10), the patch was already included from the March-update on.
http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4012598
Outbreaks
Also, if you see the following (red) mask on your computer (Example breakout at a German train station),
Turn it off by pressing the OFF button for at least 20 seconds, and contact IT immediately.
It is not advised to pay anything, instead IT will reinstall the operating system, and restore files from backups. The availability of backed up data is crucial for this operation.