Parking lots were paralyzed by the extortion virus

According to AG DATA, paid garages in Germany have been paralyzed by the extortionist WannaCry, about whom it is still uncertain how quickly it spread.

WannaCry has also entered the payment system of some garages in Germany. The parking company concerned has not yet disclosed what revenue it has lost as a result of the infection, but the barriers are still open and so traffic is uncontrolled. According to AG DATA, the events draw attention to the fact that virus outbreaks can easily affect our daily lives as well. Paralysis of garage management is also a problem because motorists can drive into garages without free parking spaces and traffic jams can occur.

Meanwhile, it’s still unclear how WannaCry spread so quickly. Experts agree that this time it was not the email attachments that served as the source of the infection. WannaCry exploits a security flaw in Microsoft's File Sharing Protocol (SMB) that is typically not filtered out by ISPs. This has made it easier for the blackmail virus to spread to Internet-connected machines that have the service enabled.

The criminals spoke

The attackers also sent messages to some of the infected victims. It draws victims ’attention to providing their unique Bitcoin ID an hour before they pay the ransom. This makes it easier for “blackmailers” to “administer”. According to AG DATA, the action of the criminals was so successful that it hit them unprepared and now they have problems keeping up with the issuance of the release keys. According to the anti-virus company, it is not advisable to pay the ransom for this reason alone.