Today's global ransomware attack weaponized software updates

When the Wannacry ransomware tore through the UK and Europe in May, there was a certain logic to the heightened scale of damage. Ransomware attacks were nothing new, but this one had a secret weapon, a sophisticated software exploit known as EternalBlue, published by the Shadow Brokers in April and believed to have been developed by the NSA. It was nation-state level weaponry turned against soft, civilian targets, like robbing a small-town bank with an Abrams tank. If you were looking for answers on how it spread so far so fast, you didn’t have to look far.

Now, just over a month later, a new strain of ransomware has inflicted similar damage with almost none of that firepower. A variant of the Petya family of ransomware, the virus has...

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