<p>The biggest ransomware attack in history began last Friday. Since then, it has infected tens of thousands of computers in over 100 countries. ;</p>
<p>This includes hospitals &ndash; some of which were forced to cancel outpatient appointments &ndash; banks, government agencies, universities, gas stations, and electronics companies. ;</p>
<p>The virus is called &#8220;WannaCrypt.&#8221; What is does is lock up a computer&rsquo;s files and then demands a &ldquo;ransom&rdquo; payment in Bitcoin electronic currency in order to regain access.</p>
<p>Experts call WannaCrypt the worst and most widespread form of malware they&rsquo;ve ever seen.</p>
<p>According to cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, the virus ;spreads through a weakness in Windows software. In essence, WannaCrypt goes through the Internet and looks for vulnerable computers &ndash; which means you don&rsquo;t even have to click anything to get infected.  ;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The WannaCrypt exploits used in the attack were drawn from the exploits stolen from the National Security Agency, or NSA, in the United States,&rdquo; writes Microsoft President Brad Smith.</p>
<p>That theft was reported in April. ;</p>
<p>Microsoft released a patch for this weakness on March 14th. Users who failed to keep their operating systems up-to-date were and still are at risk of infection.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We take every single cyberattack on a Windows system seriously, and we&rsquo;ve been working around the clock since Friday to help all our customers who have been affected by this incident,&rdquo; said Smith. ;</p>
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<p>Researchers don&#8217;t know who&rsquo;s responsible, but the majority of attacks have occurred in Taiwan, Ukraine, and Russia.  ;</p>
<p>Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, a whistleblower currently living in exile in Russia, says the NSA could have prevented the attack. ;</p>
<p>&ldquo;If @NSAGov had privately disclosed the flaw used to attack hospitals when they *found* it, not when they lost it, this may not have happened,&rdquo; he tweeted on May 12th. ;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Despite warnings, [NSA] built dangerous attack tools that could target Western software,&rdquo; said Snowden. &ldquo;Today we see the cost.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p>Snowden urges Congress to ask the NSA if it is aware of any other vulnerabilities. ;</p>
<p>Microsoft&#8217;s Smith says the attack illustrates the &ldquo;degree to which cybersecurity has become a shared responsibility between tech companies and customers&rdquo; and calls on governments to report vulnerabilities instead of stockpiling, selling, or exploiting them.  ;</p>
<p>&ldquo;An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the US military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen,&rdquo; said Smith. ;</p>
<p><strong>Author&rsquo;s Note:</strong> The NSA may have been carless with the handling of information, but Snowden&rsquo;s claim that the vulnerability for the attack came from the NSA is unfair. ;</p>
<p>The NSA maintained a list of vulnerabilities for Microsoft products. This list was stolen, and one of the vulnerabilities on the list was used in the attack. ;</p>
<p>Did Microsoft know about the list? If so, why were the vulnerabilities not patched before?</p>