Aerospace giant Boeing was hit Wednesday by the notoriously known WannaCry ransomware, resulting in an alarming alert calling for “all hands on deck” to contain the virus.
The news of the attack triggered widespread panic within the company and left many to believe that vital airplane production equipment was affected by the cyber threat. But by late Wednesday evening, Boeing was able to offer reassurance that the attack was contained with minimal damage done. “The vulnerability was limited to a few machines. We deployed software patches. There was no interruption to the 777 jet program or any of our programs,” said Linda Mills, the head of communications for Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
However, Mills admitted that it took some time to assess the scale of the attack at its South Carolina facility, claiming, “It took some time for us to go to our South Carolina operations, bring in our entire IT team and make sure we had the facts.” Mills added, “Our cybersecurity operations center detected a limited intrusion of malware that affected a small number of systems. Remediations were applied and this is not a production or delivery issue.”
The WannaCry virus was introduced in May 2017 and has taken down organizations across the world, the NHS being one of the most notable. Last May, the NHS suffered a widespread ransomware attack, leaving staff locked out of computers and many trusts to divert emergency patients. It’s been said that 19,000 operations and appointments were canceled due to the devastating ransomware attack.
Ransomware attacks have only been on the increase since then. Tin fact, the City of Atlanta suffered a devastating ransomware attack last week that left the city scrambling to remediate the issue for over 5 days.
This threat is not to be taken lightly. Suffering from a ransomware attack could result in production stoppages, so it's vitally important your organization have safeguards in place to defend against ransomware. If you’re looking to defend against WannaCry ransomware cyber attacks, request your free NNT Ransomware Mitigation Kit today.
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