Yes, this virus shouted very loudly to the whole world on May 12th. Wanna Cry turned out to be not the kind of virus that quietly and calmly spreads throughout the world from computer to computer, with which antiviruses are gradually learning to work and which over time becomes one of the figures in the table of recognized viruses.

No, everything is much more complicated here. The virus spread throughout the world in just a few hours. Russia and China suffered especially; Australia held out for some time, but it also fell into this “hole.”

It came to speeches by the world's leading politicians. One of the Microsoft executives also made a loud statement, directly accusing the US intelligence services of irresponsible behavior. The fact is that, it turns out, the American FBI has been researching the Windows system for all sorts of flaws and loopholes over the past few years. For your own purposes, of course. And loopholes were found - it’s not gods who work at Microsoft either, they also tend to make mistakes.

The only problem is that somehow the research of US detectives suddenly became known to the entire computer world, or rather to those who found an opportunity to profit from them.

As a matter of fact, the way the Wanna Cry virus spreads is traditional:

Wannacry can also be launched through unfamiliar exe or js files; infection may also occur through a graphic file (and what could be more tempting than a sexy picture).

There are cases where infection occurred simply because the computer was online. He does not ignore cloud technologies either - its preachers have been completely put to shame, they are not as protected as we are constantly told. In general, at the first glance at the current situation, there is an edge from which there is no way out, there is a wall in front, and nowhere to go back.

At first, it seemed that only the system drive “C:” was becoming the target of the virus. But as the situation developed, it turned out that the virus had spread to removable drives, which, unexpectedly, to Windows 10. There is no need to talk about flash drives, they simply “burn like candles.”

How it manifests itself

The Wanna Cry ransomware virus, which has infected a PC, manifests itself as follows:

Firstly, the attacked file receives a new extension – “.wncry”.

Secondly, the first eight characters of the file name are appended with the string “wanacry!”

Thirdly, and this is the most important thing, the virus encrypts the contents of the file, and in such a way that it is not possible to cure it, at least not within an acceptable period of time. And it turned out to be sufficient to create problems in the work of doctors in the UK, police in Russia, and managers of electronic factories in China.

Fourthly, and this is simply trivial and has been done hundreds of times by programming “guys” - they demand from 300 to 500 dollars to restore files, which must be transferred using BitCoin. They say that about 100 people did it anyway, a drop in the ocean relative to the total mass of those requiring treatment; probably, the evil-doers were counting on much more.

The virus tells you everything you need to do in a separate window under the sonorous heading “Ooops, your files have been encrypted!” Moreover, these would-be developers took care of the localization service: the text for Germans was in German, for New Zealanders – in English, and Russians read it in Russian. Just by the construction of phrases, experienced linguists can determine where these cyberbandits come from.

To solve the problem of how to recover information, Kaspersky or, especially, any of the well-known encryptors will not be suitable. Getting rid of the virus by simply deleting the file also does not work.

What to do in the first moments

As soon as there is a suspicion that wannacry, through Brisbane and Calcutta, has come to you on Lizyukova Street, even before the actual treatment, do the following:

What to always do before you take the bait

And again, remember those operations that the system specialist constantly talks about to you:

1. Constantly monitor the latest updates of the software you use, the system, first of all, and install it on your laptop. By the way, Microsoft very quickly proposed a method to treat wanna cry - download and install the latest version of the Windows 10 system with promptly made changes. Although there is no detailed description of the wanna cry virus, this is more likely for antivirus developers, even if it is still unclear how to decrypt files, Palo Alto very quickly implemented patches into their software products.
2. Always back up your most important information. It should become a rule to fight viruses in this way - every Tuesday and Friday, at exactly 15:00, all current work is stopped and backup copies are created. If you don’t create such a rule, then tomorrow you will have to cry about the lost 100 million in profit and think about how to remove the virus, not about wanna cry, but about Market Applause or something else.
3. If you don’t work online, then disconnect from it, because, to be honest, we are constantly connected to Skype, to “contacts,” just out of habit, in case someone calls. Don't forget to cancel activation.

Yes, wanna cry didn’t do anything new - the same desire for money, the same desire to become famous (although fame will not go beyond the “kitchen”), the same game on carelessness and discord in the world, from the FBI and the US State Department to poorly organized work with backup and information protection.