Another cyber attack like yesterdays could prompt WARNATO have warned another cyber attack like yesterdays could prompt war with the worlds armies uniting to crush the hackers. Computer users around the world were scrambling Wednesday to reboot systems after a tidal wave of ransomware cyber attacks spread from Ukraine and Russia across Europe to the United States and then on to Asia. The attack, dubbed Golden. Eye, appeared very similar but more sophisticated to the Wanna. Cry ransomware which hit more than 2. Ukrainian tax software. Jens Stoltenberg, NATOs chief, warned the alliance must step up its defence against cyber attacks, saying they could potentially trigger their Article 5 mutual defence commitment, meaning all members would join forces to tackle those responsible. The Ukrainian government appears to be among the worst hit by a new ransomware virus that struck across Europe on Tuesday pictured, a supermarket in Kharkov Users are being shown a message saying their data has been encrypted, with some asking for 3. Bitcoin to retrieve it pictured, an ATM in UkraineRozenko Pavlo, the Ukrainian deputy Prime Minister, tweeted this image of his computer screen saying all computers of the government had been affected. Former Prime Minister of Norway and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the next cyber attack could result in war. Ahead of a NATO defence ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday at which cyber security will be a key talking point, Stoltenberg said The attack in May and this week just underlines the importance of strengthening our cyber defences and that is what we are doing. We exercise more, we share best practices and technology and we also work more and more closely with all allies. What is Golden. Eye IT experts have dubbed the new virus Golden. Eye, and say it appears to be a more potent version of ransomware that started circulating recently. Golden. Eye is in turn a variant of even older code called Petya, which scrambles files on computers hard drive, requiring a code to unlock it. Petya is particularly effective because, rather than scrambling files one by one, it blocks access to a whole hard drive in one go, analyst hasherezade wrote previously. Another analyst, Bogdan Botezatu, told ABC that Golden. Eye is a worm type virus, spreading from machine to machine automatically, with no need for human interaction. Its like somebody sneezing into a train full of people, said Botezatu. You just have to exist there and youre vulnerable. Others said Golden. Eye appears to be exploiting the same Windows weakness used by Wanna. Cry in order to spread itself rapidly. Stoltenberg recalled NATO leaders had agreed last year a cyber attack could be considered a threat sufficiently serious to warrant invoking the alliances all for one, one for all security guarantee. They also made cyber a NATO domain on a par with the traditional air, sea and land arms to become part of overall alliance planning and resource allocation. NATO was also helping Ukraine, the country first hit by Tuesdays cyberattack, with its online defences, Stoltenberg said. Yesterdays attack may have first spread through a rogue update to a piece of Ukrainian accounting software called MEDoc, according to tweets by the countrys cyberpolice unit. It said a rogue update seeded the infection across Ukraine. On Facebook, MEDoc acknowledged having been hacked. Emails sent Tuesday to an address posted to the bottom of ransom demands went unreturned. That might be because the email provider hosting that address, Berlin based Posteo, pulled the plug on the account before the infection became widely known. In an email, a Posteo representative said it had blocked the email address immediately after learning that it was associated with ransomware. The company added that it was in contact with German authorities to make sure that we react properly. As tech experts continue to fire fight the spread of the virus across Europe and North America, it has emerged they are potentially more sophisticated, than the Wanna. Watch Dogs 2 got its final patch today, which makes impossible to use mods while online if youre playing on PC. The games publisher, Ubisoft, says that this is. Cry attack, the European police agency said Wednesday. Describing it as another serious ransomware attack, Europol director Rob Wainwright said there were clear similarities with the Wanna. Cry attack but also indications of a more sophisticated attack capability intended to exploit a range of vulnerabilities. In the NATO context, the greatest fear is that another state would attack an allys networks to undermine key industrial and civil society infrastructure without firing a shot. In the event, however, it seems non state actors may be able to cause just as much mayhem. Wanna. Cry The previous cyber attack that crippled the world. What is ransomware Ransomware is a type of malicious software that criminals use to attack computer systems. A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Ferikkain%2Ffiles%2F2014%2F08%2Fgoldeneye.jpg' alt='Watch Goldeneye Online Forbes' title='Watch Goldeneye Online Forbes' />The new TAG Heuer Connected Modular 45 Kingsman Special Edition watch with images, price, background, specs, our expert analysis. With Tesla purportedly gearing up to introduce an allelectric semi next month, diesel engine supplier Cummins took some of the automakers buzz away on Tuesday. Hurricane Irma barreled through the Caribbean earlier this month, killing at least 38 people in the region and destroying thousands of buildings. Watch The Stoned Age Hindi Full Movie. Unfortunately, 2017. I cover security and privacy for Forbes. Ive been breaking news and writing features on these topics for major publications since 2010. As a freelancer. Another cyber attack like yesterdays GoldenEye could prompt WAR, NATO warns Hackers risk triggering the all for one, one for all pledge if they attack an allys. Back when Mercedes was using the reanimated corpse of Pablo Picasso as the head of design for the Unimog division. Hackers often demand the victim to pay ransom money to access their files or remove harmful programs. The aggressive attacks dupe users into clicking on a fake link whether its in an email or on a fake website, causing an infection to corrupt the computer. In some instances, adverts for pornographic website will repeatedly appear on your screen, while in others, a pop up will state that a piece of your data will be destroyed if you dont pay. In the case of the NHS attack, the ransomware used was called Wanna Decryptor or Wanna. Cry Virus.  What was the Wanna. A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Finsertcoin%2Ffiles%2F2016%2F08%2Fdestiny-private-matches.jpg' alt='Watch Goldeneye Online Forbes' title='Watch Goldeneye Online Forbes' />Cry virus The Wanna. Cry virus targets Microsofts widely used Windows operating system. The virus encrypts certain files on the computer and then blackmails the user for money in exchange for the access to the files. It leaves the user with only two files Instructions on what to do next and the Wanna Decryptor program itself. When opened the software tells users that their files have been encrypted and gives them a few days to pay up or their files will be deleted. It can quickly spread through an entire network of computers in a business or hospital, encrypting files on every PC. How to protect yourself from ransomware Thankfully, there are ways to avoid ransomware attacks, and Norton Antivirus has compiled a list of prevention methods 1. Use reputable antivirus software and a firewall. Back up your computer often. Set up a popup blocker. Be cautious about clicking links inside emails or on suspicious websites. If you do receive a ransom note, disconnect from the Internet. Alert authorities. Yes, Google Uses Its Power to Quash Ideas It Doesnt LikeI Know Because It Happened to Me UpdatedThe story in the New York Times this week was unsettling The New America Foundation, a major think tank, was getting rid of one of its teams of scholars, the Open Markets group. New America had warned its leader Barry Lynn that he was imperiling the institution, the Times reported, after he and his group had repeatedly criticized Google, a major funder of the think tank, for its market dominance. The criticism of Google had culminated in Lynn posting a statement to the think tanks website applauding the European Commissions decision to slap the company with a record breaking 2. That post was briefly taken down, then republished. Soon afterward, Anne Marie Slaughter, the head of New America, told Lynn that his group had to leave the foundation for failing to abide by institutional norms of transparency and collegiality. Watch Michael Online Facebook. Google denied any role in Lynns firing, and Slaughter tweeted that the facts are largely right, but quotes are taken way out of context and interpretation is wrong. Despite the conflicting story lines, the underlying premise felt familiar to me Six years ago, I was pressured to unpublish a critical piece about Googles monopolistic practices after the company got upset about it. In my case, the post stayed unpublished. I was working for Forbes at the time, and was new to my job. In addition to writing and reporting, I helped run social media there, so I got pulled into a meeting with Google salespeople about Googles then new social network, Plus. The Google salespeople were encouraging Forbes to add Pluss 1 social buttons to articles on the site, alongside the Facebook Like button and the Reddit share button. They said it was important to do because the Plus recommendations would be a factor in search resultsa crucial source of traffic to publishers. This sounded like a news story to me. Googles dominance in search and news give it tremendous power over publishers. By tying search results to the use of Plus, Google was using that muscle to force people to promote its social network. I asked the Google people if I understood correctly If a publisher didnt put a 1 button on the page, its search results would sufferThe answer was yes. After the meeting, I approached Googles public relations team as a reporter, told them Id been in the meeting, and asked if I understood correctly. The press office confirmed it, though they preferred to say the Plus button influences the ranking. They didnt deny what their sales people told me If you dont feature the 1 button, your stories will be harder to find with Google. With that, I published a story headlined, Stick Google Plus Buttons On Your Pages, Or Your Search Traffic Suffers, that included bits of conversation from the meeting. The Google guys explained how the new recommendation system will be a factor in search. Universally, or just among Google Plus friends I asked. Universal was the answer. So if Forbes doesnt put 1 buttons on its pages, it will suffer in search rankings I asked. Google guy says he wouldnt phrase it that way, but basically yes. An internet marketing group scraped the story after it was published and a version can still be found here. Google promptly flipped out. This was in 2. 01. Google never challenged the accuracy of the reporting. Instead, a Google spokesperson told me that I needed to unpublish the story because the meeting had been confidential, and the information discussed there had been subject to a non disclosure agreement between Google and Forbes. I had signed no such agreement, hadnt been told the meeting was confidential, and had identified myself as a journalist. It escalated quickly from there. I was told by my higher ups at Forbes that Google representatives called them saying that the article was problematic and had to come down. The implication was that it might have consequences for Forbes, a troubling possibility given how much traffic came through Google searches and Google News. I thought it was an important story, but I didnt want to cause problems for my employer. And if the other participants in the meeting had in fact been covered by an NDA, I could understand why Google would object to the story. Given that Id gone to the Google PR team before publishing, and it was already out in the world, I felt it made more sense to keep the story up. Ultimately, though, after continued pressure from my bosses, I took the piece downa decision I will always regret. Forbes declined comment about this. But the most disturbing part of the experience was what came next Somehow, very quickly, search results stopped showing the original story at all. As I recall itand although it has been six years, this episode was seared into my memorya cached version remained shortly after the post was unpublished, but it was soon scrubbed from Google search results. That was unusual websites captured by Googles crawler did not tend to vanish that quickly. And unpublished stories still tend to show up in search results as a headline. Scraped versions could still be found, but the traces of my original story vanished. Its possible that Forbes, and not Google, was responsible for scrubbing the cache, but I frankly doubt that anyone at Forbes had the technical know how to do it, as other articles deleted from the site tend to remain available through Google. Deliberately manipulating search results to eliminate references to a story that Google doesnt like would be an extraordinary, almost dystopian abuse of the companys power over information on the internet. I dont have any hard evidence to prove that thats what Google did in this instance, but its part of why this episode has haunted me for years The story Google didnt want people to read swiftly became impossible to find through Google. Google wouldnt address whether it deliberately deep sixed search results related to the story. Asked to comment, a Google spokesperson sent a statement saying that Forbes removed the story because it was not reported responsibly, an apparent reference to the claim that the meeting was covered by a non disclosure agreement. Again, I identified myself as a journalist and signed no such agreement before attending. People who paid close attention to the search industry noticed the pieces disappearance and wroteaboutit, wondering why it disappeared. Those pieces, at least, are still findable today. As for how effective the strategy was, Googles dominance in other industries didnt really pan out for Plus. Waltons Season 9 Episode 20 there. Six years later, the social network is a ghost town and Google has basically given up on it. But back when Google still thought it could compete with Facebook on social, it was willing to play hardball to promote the network. Google started out as a company dedicated to ensuring the best access to information possible, but as its grown into one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world, its priorities have changed. Even as it fights against ordinary people who want their personal histories removed from the web, the company has an incentive to suppress information about itself. Google said it never urged New America to fire Lynn and his team. But an entity as powerful as Google doesnt have to issue ultimatums. It can just nudge organizations and get them to act as it wants, given the influence it wields. Lynn and the rest of the team that left New America Foundation plan to establish a new nonprofit to continue their work. For now, theyve launched a website called Citizens Against Monopoly that tells their story. It says that Googles attempts to shut down think tanks, journalists, and public interest advocates researching and writing about the dangers of concentrated private power must end. Its safe to say they wont be receiving funding from Google. Update, September 1, 1 5. Yesterday, we asked Googles communications team for a response to this story.