{"id":210814,"date":"2017-05-16T14:28:47","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T12:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=210814"},"modified":"2017-05-16T15:05:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T13:05:50","slug":"microsoft-was-hoarding-patches-for-wannacry-exploit-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/210814-microsoft-was-hoarding-patches-for-wannacry-exploit-report.html","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft was hoarding patches for WannaCry exploit &#8211; Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While Microsoft complained about the NSA stockpiling cyber weapons, it has reportedly stockpiled patches, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2017\/05\/16\/microsoft_stockpiling_flaws_too\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Register reported<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The report stated that Microsoft was tipped off at the start of 2017 that the NSA&#8217;s EternalBlue cyber weapon had been stolen and was going to leak.<\/p>\n<p>EternalBlue could\u00a0compromise all versions of Windows through a networking bug in SMBv1, and is the attack\u00a0the\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/210802-even-if-you-paid-the-ransom-wannacry-probably-wont-give-your-files-back.html\">WannaCry ransomware<\/a><\/strong> used to infect\u00a0machines.<\/p>\n<p>By March, Microsoft had developed and distributed security fixes\u00a0for the\u00a0vulnerability.<\/p>\n<p>In April,\u00a0the Shadow Brokers leaked several cyber weapons online after reportedly\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/176001-hackers-say-they-are-selling-nsa-cyber-weapons.html\">hacking<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0the NSA&#8217;s Equation Group.\u00a0EternalBlue was among the\u00a0weapons.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Old patches<\/h3>\n<p>According to reports, when the WannaCry ransomware started spreading, many infected devices were running &#8220;end-of-life&#8221; versions of Windows, including Windows XP.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft released patches for these versions of Windows, despite them having reached end-of-life.<\/p>\n<p>An analysis by The Register revealed that the patches weren&#8217;t new, though, and\u00a0had been around since February 2017.<\/p>\n<p>It should be noted that Microsoft makes it clear that when an older operating system reaches end-of-life, it no longer receives free support.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft decided to release the recent patches for free, due to the unprecedented nature of WannaCry, for older version of its OS.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theinquirer.net\/inquirer\/news\/3010060\/windows-xp-in-use-at-less-than-five-per-cent-of-nhs-trust-claims-uk-defence-sec\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Inquirer reported<\/a><\/strong> that in May 2015, the UK government &#8211; whose health services were affected by WannaCry &#8211; would not renew its Windows XP support agreement with Microsoft.<\/p>\n<p>The attacks have now raised questions about the use of old software by organisations, and why UK health services were using old versions of Windows without support agreements.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/210660-microsoft-says-wannacrypt-attack-a-wake-up-call.html\">Microsoft says WannaCrypt attack a wake-up call<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While Microsoft complained about the NSA stockpiling cyber weapons, it has reportedly stockpiled patches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":140998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[123,23215],"class_list":["post-210814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-microsoft","tag-national-security-agency-nsa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210814"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210916,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210814\/revisions\/210916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}