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  • EFE/EPA/Ritchie B. Tongo

    Pirated Windows led to WannaCry's spread in China and Russia

    by 
    Mariella Moon
    Mariella Moon
    05.15.2017

    WannaCry, the notorious ransomware demanding up to $300 worth of Bitcoins to unlock victims' computers, hit systems all around the globe over the weekend. According to Finnish cybersecurity company F-Secure, though, Russia and China were affected the most, and it could be due to the rampant use of pirated software in those countries. Microsoft issued a patch for the vulnerability the attackers used as an entry point back in March and even fixed it for XP, which it long stopped supporting. However, pirated systems can't install those patches, so computers running illegal software remained vulnerable.