WannaCry Attack Is A Wake-Up Call for Cyber Preparedness

While there have been some indications that WannaCry originated in North Korea, nothing is conclusive yet and investigations into the attack continue. Regardless of its origins, WannaCry focused the world's attention on cyber-attacks as a potential threat to everyone, not just large companies with highly valuable data. Responses to the attack around the world varied in their success recovering data, but funding in the bitcoin wallets designated to receive the ransoms indicates that only a small percentage of victims paid the ransom, even with the relatively modest demand of $300.

WannaCry was indiscriminate in its victims, affecting health care organizations, international corporations, governmental organizations, companies and individuals. WannaCry impacted more than 300,000 computers in more than 150 countries, causing countless hours of business shutdowns and IT time trying to restore the damaged systems. Despite the scope of the attack, the overall impact was relatively minor compared to the potential damage that could result from a more sophisticated attack. The attack did not result in the loss of personal data that could have caused the social and financial costs of this attack to skyrocket.