Mohammad Jamal Tabbara, the Senior Systems Engineer for UAE and Channel at Infoblox, speaks to Channel Post about the scale of WannaCry infection
Have there been any instances of WannaCry attack in the region?
Fortunately, it is believed that the countries in our region were the least impacted with this global cyber threat. So far there has not been any official statement announcing any instance.
What has been the scale of infection of this ransomware threat?
It is believed that the WannaCry Ransomware attack inflicted damage over 74 countries, or even up to a 100 countries, with more than 45,000 attacks have took place so far. The Russian Federation being the most impacted such as the Russian Interior Ministry, the NHS hospitals in the UK, Telefonica in Spain, Fedex in the USA, German train station in Frankfurt, and so on. This ransomware is rated as one of the most destructive and devastating cyber attacks in our times.
What is the state of ransomware threat in the region?
Egypt was the most impacted in the region, yet way less compared to Russia, UK, Spain, Ukraine, India, and many others. Countries such as like the UAE, Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait, and so on, are on high alerts.
How can companies and users keep themselves safe from such ransomware attacks?
The first step starts with preemptive protection, such as keeping your machine up-to-date with patches, along having an intelligent core network services such as secure DNS to disrupt and mitigate any malicious infiltration or communication. Regarding WannaCry specifically, make sure your Microsoft machine is updated with the patch released back in March 2017, make sure that you backup your data regularly, and follow it with using a secure DNS service and anti-malware solutions.
How do you as a security company make sure your customers are safe from such attacks?
Infoblox is protecting its customers from such attacks by providing two major security solutions “Data Protection and Malware Mitigation”, along with “Threat Containment and Operations”. The Infoblox security solutions will detect, disrupt, and contain such ransomware.
