Experts: New Cyber Attack Currently Underway, Many Fear Dire Consequences

Well now, it looks like the NSA may have indirectly (or directly) caused more chaos than even they originally thought due to their years-long mission of compiling methods to spy, hack, and ruin Americans who crossed their paths.

Any honest government would be currently looking at serious purges meant to deal with these criminals, but perhaps that is too much to ask at this point in time.

From RT:

As the world reels from the WannaCry ransomware attack, it’s now emerged that a second, potentially larger attack, is already under way. It seems the widespread proliferation of military-grade cyberweapons has ushered in a new era of digital crime.

Cyber bandits have again deployed both the EternalBlue and DoublePulsar exploits developed and used by the NSA which were released by the ShadowBrokers hackers back in April.

“Initial statistics suggest that this attack may be larger in scale than WannaCry, affecting hundreds of thousands of PCs and servers worldwide: because this attack shuts down SMB networking to prevent further infections with other malware (including the WannaCry worm) via that same vulnerability, it may have in fact limited the spread of last week’s WannaCry infection,” wrote a security researcher who goes by the alias Kafeine at cybersecurity company Proofpoint.

This latest attack uses the two exploits to install the cryptocurrency miner Adylkuzz over corporate Local Area and wireless networks but, rather curiously, may actually have helped slow the spread of WannaCry.

However, in an apparent case of “picking your poison,” the Adylkuzz miner dramatically slows PC and server performance as it extracts cryptocurrency but it does not lock users out of their machines and data, as WannaCry did.

Researchers at Proofpoint estimate that the Adylkuzz attack may have begun as early as April 24 but was subsequently overshadowed in the hysteria that followed the WannaCry ransomware attacks.

The attack is launched from multiple virtual private servers which scour the internet for vulnerabilities to install the Adylkuzz miner.

The malware infection occurs as follows:

The EternalBlue exploit opens the door for infection with DoublePulsar on a target machine. DoublePulsar then downloads and runs Adylkuzz on the computer.

Adylkuzz then stops any preexisting versions of itself on a target machine, while also blocking SMB network communications with other machines to prevent any further malware infections from disrupting its operations. It initially prevents cybersecurity professionals from identifying that there is a problem.

Once the door has been held open and detection risks have been minimized, Adylkuzz then downloads mining instructions, the cryptocurrency miner itself and a variety of cleanup tools to mask its activities.

To all computer experts and hackers on the Alt-Right, please forgive my lack of total understanding of these subjects.

I do like to consider myself a somewhat-decent manipulator of technology, but in reality I’m probably just on a level equal to most Millennials who use computers on a daily basis.

So, I’m honestly finding it difficult to fully grasp the reasons why this new hack – it’s all speculation at the moment – could break systems so viciously and effectively.

Is it because there is no simple cure for the damage caused by the software (it’s really mostly digital currency mining)?

Or is it because we as a society and a race have grown soft, selfish, lazy, and complacent with our reliance on technology?

I mean, we’ve now gotten to the point where a single virus unleashed by a government or random autist could destroy everything from our kids’ baby pictures to our entire financial life savings.

That is not to say that I hate everything about virtual progress – I actually believe the rise of AI may HELP us in some of our struggles against Communism, non-Whites, and the Jews.

It’s just that I feel as if maybe folks need to stop depending on computers to codify even the most simple documents, and instead invest in a filing cabinet for the sake of security in this decadent and troubling age.