{"id":244237,"date":"2026-05-12T05:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T09:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/wannacry-the-ransomware-attack-that-changed-the-history-of-cybersecurity\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T06:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T10:30:11","slug":"wannacry-the-ransomware-attack-that-changed-the-history-of-cybersecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/wannacry-the-ransomware-attack-that-changed-the-history-of-cybersecurity\/","title":{"rendered":"WannaCry, the ransomware attack that changed the history of cybersecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/securityaffairs.com\/192015\/malware\/wannacry-the-ransomware-attack-that-changed-the-history-of-cybersecurity.html\">WannaCry, the ransomware attack that changed the history of cybersecurity<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/securityaffairs.com\/192015\/malware\/wannacry-the-ransomware-attack-that-changed-the-history-of-cybersecurity.html\">https:\/\/securityaffairs.com\/192015\/malware\/wannacry-the-ransomware-attack-that-changed-the-history-of-cybersecurity.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-12 05:37:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"securityaffairs.com\">securityaffairs.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><h2>WannaCry, the ransomware attack that changed the history of cybersecurity<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span> Pierluigi Paganini<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/securityaffairs.com\/wp-content\/themes\/security_affairs\/images\/clock-icon.svg\" alt=\"\"\/> May 12, 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-fluid mb-4\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/securityaffairs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/WannaCrypt-ransomware-3.jpg.png?fit=1624%2C627&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WannaCry showed how unpatched flaws and leaked cyber tools can cripple global systems, reshaping cybersecurity defenses worldwide.<\/h2>\n<p>In memory of the day the digital world was shaken, but learned to fight back.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>WannaCry ransomware <\/strong>attack represents one of the most significant events in recent cybersecurity history, not only for its global scale but also for the technical and geopolitical implications it raised. Analyzing its history means understanding how known vulnerabilities, advanced tools, and delays in mitigation can converge into an event capable of disrupting critical infrastructure worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>WannaCry emerged on May 12, 2017 by exploiting a vulnerability in the SMBv1 protocol of Microsoft Windows (CVE-2017-0144 aka EternalBlue). This vulnerability, which was addressed by the Microsoft security patch <strong>MS17-010<\/strong> in March 2017, allowed remote code execution without authentication. The most critical detail is that the exploit used, known as EternalBlue, was not developed by common cybercriminals but derived from offensive tools attributed to the National Security Agency (NSA), later leaked by the hacker group Shadow Brokers.<\/p>\n<p>This combination made WannaCry particularly effective. It was not a traditional ransomware spread via phishing, but a worm capable of autonomously propagating within networks.<\/p>\n<p>On that day in May, WannaCry began spreading rapidly, infecting over 200,000 systems in more than 150 countries within hours. Among the countries most affected were Spain, United Kingdom, United States, China, Portugal, Vietnam, Russia, and Ukraine, with particular impact on British hospital IT systems and Spanish telecommunications networks.<\/p>\n<p>Italy was also affected by the attack, and the case was handled by the CNAIPIC, the cybercrime operations center of the Polizia Postale&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/securityaffairs.com\/192015\/malware\/wannacry-the-ransomware-attack-that-changed-the-history-of-cybersecurity.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WannaCry, the ransomware attack that changed the history of cybersecurity https:\/\/securityaffairs.com\/192015\/malware\/wannacry-the-ransomware-attack-that-changed-the-history-of-cybersecurity.html Publish Date: 2026-05-12 05:37:00&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/securityaffairs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/WannaCrypt-ransomware.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24,31,35,32,25,27],"class_list":["post-244237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-cybersecurity","tag-exploit","tag-hacker","tag-malware","tag-phishing","tag-vulnerability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244242,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244237\/revisions\/244242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}