WannaCry has saved many, because after the ransomware attack, the effects of Petya have been much less, affecting far fewer companies, because they already had Eternal Blue patched, the security hole in Windows that WannaCry exploited and that Petya also exploits.
Computer security is very important and we can avoid problems by storing important files in external storage units not connected or what is the same, a hard disk or USB memory that we will connect only to save important files, although we can also save them in the cloud if they are not very heavy (cloud storage, in its free version, is limited in capacity). WannaCry a month and a half ago put us on alert and Petya confirmed that safety should be present in our lives, just like putting on a seat belt in the car.
WannaCry was the wake-up call for companies, public institutions and users in general and possibly, if that turning point had not occurred that literally affected the whole world, and paralyzed hundreds of companies around the globe, the Petya effect It could have been much worse. The expansion of WannaCry was done through one of the many vulnerabilities in Windows (the few that we know about and the thousands that we do not), leaving the ransomware free to infect an entire network quickly. The origin was in old equipment, which was not updated. The breeding ground was there.
Following WannaCry, corporate and consumer computers were rushed to keep computers safe. What the update does is to patch Eternal Blue, a vulnerability that WannaCry uses to infect computers and that Petya has now exploited. The massive update that WannaCry caused is the one that has allowed Petya to be contained, which has affected much less, only the laggards or those who could have problems updating, because they should stop all production for a certain time, as it seems to be the case of Maersk, which needs its network constantly operational.
Petya is a bigger threat than WannaCry because it is better developed and designed. To give us an idea, WannaCry could have been developed by children quietly and Petya seems developed by NASA (extreme comparison, I know, but it would make a good comparison). Petya has it difficult in this case to infect computers, since there are fewer computers with vulnerability. WannaCry was incorrect and faulty, it seemed to be a half-developed test, but Petya for its part seems to be more complete and complex and does not encrypt the data, it directly deletes it, making it useless to pay the ransom. Chaos is clearly sought.
Without WannaCry, Petya's attack could have caused a thousand times more damage, since it is better developed, it is more complex, its programming structure is more polished and its aggressiveness is infinitely higher. If Petya had really attacked first, many companies would have lost millions of euros due to unemployment and thousands of critical data for companies would have been lost. Computer security is often taken as a joke in companies and it is not valued properly, until there is a dislike, then everything is shouting, fuss, crying and accusations to computer scientists, who with limited means do what they can. .
