14 DAY TRIAL // A brand new WannaCry variant was stopped in its tracks by security researchers via the same method of registering a jibberish domain.
Matthieu Suiche, security researcher that's the founder of Comae Technologies and has a history of working for VMWare, tweeted about the kill switch discovered for the new WannaCry variant. According to him, since registering the second kill switch, they managed to stop over 10,000 machines from spreading further, mainly from Russia.
Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that the kill switch will keep this problem at bay for long or that it will work on all variants currently circulating the Internet.
It is expected that as people return to work on Monday, the number of infections is going to continue growing, although hope is that the variants that have been stopped thus far by registering a jibberish domain hidden in the code will limit that number to some extent.
Prevent infections
The best way to approach this situation is to make sure your systems are up to date security-wise. Microsoft has long since released a patch to close up the vulnerability this malware exploits. The company even released a security update for Windows XP and 2003, which were no longer supported. Given how many people still use these operating systems, however, something had to be done.
Another thing you can do is to install a trusty security program on your device to keep infections at bay. While WannaCry is a nasty malware that mixes ransomware with a worm component, making it spread like wildfire, it's still easily detectable by the right security solution. Avast, for instance, detected close to 195,000 attempts to infiltrate a device its software protects, managing to keep them all safe. Other security firms are boasting similar numbers. At the same time, Europol estimated over the weekend that some 200,000 devices had become infected by WannaCry.