What is WannaCry ransomware?

The attack, Smith says, "represents a completely unintended but disconcerting link between the two most serious forms of cybersecurity threats in the world today - nation-state action and organized criminal action". As this rapidly spreading threat evolves, more cybercriminals are likely to attempt to profit from this and similar vulnerabilities.

On Sunday, someone tried to create a version of the WannaCry ransomware that didn't feature the kill switch domain.

European policing and security agencies said the fallout from a ransomware attack that has already crippled more than 200,000 computers around the world could deepen as people return for another work week.

He continued: "The attack is certainly a wake-up call to companies across the globe and, for some, it will be a reminder that they need to take security seriously, be that in terms of applying the correct technical controls [or] training staff on how to spot ransomware". An unidentified young cybersecurity researcher claimed to help halt WannaCry's spread by activating a so-called "kill switch". He said the software attacking a vulnerability had been incorporated with other software and delivered in a way to cause "infection, encryption and locking". That, too, was curtailed thanks to the quick work of a cybersecurity researcher.

Separately, experts from the computer support forum BleepingComputer.com have seen four imitations so far. "Just as those attacks were picking up speed, we were heading into Friday evening and turning off a lot of computer systems", he said. Suspecting that the address had something to do with how the virus communicated-a common feature in botnets and other types of malware-MalwareTech registered the domain and watched as traffic from thousands of infected computers came flooding in, almost overloading the server hosting the domain. There are many different families of ransomware", he said, adding, "It's getting bigger. To some extent, this is understandable because deploying patches in environments with a large number of systems is not an easy task.

He added: "The trust's security measures that we have got in place are stable and still holding firm".

According to Netmarketshare's desktop operating system statistics for April, no less than 7.04% of PCs out there are still using Windows XP (and a good number of them are likely to reside in a corporate environment). This is the case for ATMs, medical devices, ticketing machines, electronic self-service kiosks, like those in airports, and even servers that run legacy applications that can't easily be reengineered. The same goes for cloud services, though they can be helpful. Microsoft has tried to convince companies to stop using SMBv1 for some time, as it has other problems aside from this flaw. In other words, it doesn't tell Americans about software holes that make them vulnerable - so it can exploit those weaknesses to spy on foreigners. Apart from this weekend's attacks, criminals have locked down part of San Francisco's public transit system and a hospital in Los Angeles-in the latter case, forcing the hospital to pony up $17,000 to regain access to its files.

"We need governments to consider the damage to civilians that comes from hoarding these vulnerabilities and the use of these exploits", continued Smith, explaining that this was why the company had called for a new "Digital Geneva Convention" - "including a new requirement for governments to report vulnerabilities to vendors, rather than stockpile, sell, or exploit them".

Cheryl said: "I had a condition called placenta praevia, which made my pregnancy high risk".

"We haven't fully dodged this bullet at all until we're patched against the vulnerability itself", Kalember said.