Only several days had passed since the good old Windows 7 is officially dead. No updates, security patches, nor technical support will be received from Microsoft anymore, and the tech giant is hoping that this measure will finally convince the users to make the upgrade to Windows 10. Since Windows 7 is hugely popular and it’s simply a very optimized operating system, it’s highly possible that the majority will still prefer it even without Microsoft’s support.
But it’s only a matter of time until Windows 7 becomes unbearable – future apps and games won’t work on it anymore, and flaws will keep on coming. One of them is the recently discovered crypto threat hidden in the audio WAV files.
Cryptominers are showing their fangs
A medical tech sector business has been attacked by cryptominers in a pretty ingenious way: by using WAV audio files to infiltrate malware. The goal was to exploit the EternalBlue vulnerability, so the attackers targeted the network of the organization which was running by computers equipped with Windows 7. Therefore, the computers had been infected with crypto-mining malware by the WAV files, causing them to freeze and reboot.
The attack happened in December 2019, and it has been discovered and revealed to the public by Ophir Harpaz and Daniel Goldberg, two security researchers from Guardicore Labs.
The EternalBlue exploit was behind the WannaCry attacks
WannaCry is not called that way for no reason since it has been one of the most dangerous cyberattacks ever. Launched in May 2017 worldwide, it infected over 300,000 computers. The attack encrypted data and demanded ransom payments in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Among the targetted computers, there have been some owned by the UK National Health Service. And, perhaps, it made a lot of people cry, as its name suggests.
With all that being said, the most reasonable solution is to make the upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as possible. The latest operating system by Microsoft is even free for those willing to upgrade from a previous version.
