Unless you live completely cut off from the rest of human civilization, chances are good you’ve heard about the WannaCry ransomware. However, so we’re all on the same page, I’ll go over the salient points of its history before discussing why it is still a threat. WannaCry - the first successful crypto-ransomware worm - started to spread on May 12th 2017 using the EternalBlue exploit and DoublePulsar backdoor implant (both courtesy of the Shadow Brokers and - by proxy - Equation Group/NSA) and supposedly hit more than 100 countries within the first 24 hours.

October was named European Month of Cyber Security and because of that, many events intended to raise cyber security awareness (such as Security Fest in Prague) were held during the 30 day period. Unfortunately, October has seen just as many new developments on the proverbial “dark side” of cyber security. One of these was a widely followed theft of personal data (including credit card numbers) of up to four milion customers of a British telecommunication service provider TalkTalk.