Twenty-Two Year Old Stops Ransomware Attack for $10.69
Posted by: Timothy Weaver on 05/15/2017 10:04 AM
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A 22-year-old computer researcher in the UK noticed the headlines about the ransomware taking over the world and decided to see what was up.
"I was out having lunch with a friend and got back about 3 p.m. and saw an influx of news articles. I had a bit of a look into that and then I found a sample of the malware behind it."
He managed to get a hold of some of the code for the ransomware and notice a domain name in the code. Further research revealed that the domain hadn't been purchased and registered by anyone.
For a whopping $10.69, he purchased it and made it active. The attack stopped. Apparently, the coders included the domain name in order to have it act as a "kill switch".
The bad news, however, is that hackers have simply rewritten the code and used it for more attacks.
Source: CNet
"I was out having lunch with a friend and got back about 3 p.m. and saw an influx of news articles. I had a bit of a look into that and then I found a sample of the malware behind it."He managed to get a hold of some of the code for the ransomware and notice a domain name in the code. Further research revealed that the domain hadn't been purchased and registered by anyone.
For a whopping $10.69, he purchased it and made it active. The attack stopped. Apparently, the coders included the domain name in order to have it act as a "kill switch".
The bad news, however, is that hackers have simply rewritten the code and used it for more attacks.
Source: CNet
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