NHS AGENCY SUCCESSFULLY FOUGHT BACK WANNACRY RANSOMWARE WITH DARKTRACE

NHS AGENCY
SUCCESSFULLY FOUGHT BACK WANNACRY RANSOMWARE WITH DARKTRACE

Break-through AI
Technology Detects and Contains WannaCry Attack at NHS Agency Before Damage is
Inflicted

Singapore – May 15th,
2017 – Darktrace, the leader in Enterprise
Immune System technology, has announced today that a number of its customers,
including an NHS agency, successfully detected and contained a WannaCry
ransomware attack on their networks on Friday with Darktrace’s
break-through AI technology for cyber defense, which spotted the threat within
minutes.

The WannaCry malware
attack is unprecedented in scale and has affected over 200,000 devices across 150 countries
according to Europol, including the UK’s National Health Service, Spain’s
Telefonica and FedEx in the US. Spread by a pernicious email attachment and
supercharged by a worm, the stealthy malware encrypts files, with cyber
criminals demanding ransom before users can regain access to their data.
Traditional security tools that use rules and signatures to stop cyber-threats
at the border fell short in the face of this never-seen-before and
fast-spreading malware.

Unlike the old attempts
to keep malware at bay, the Enterprise Immune System is a pioneering,
machine-learning technology capable of detecting and fighting back against
stealthy ‘unknown unknowns’, such as WannaCry, automatically and in real time.
Modeled after the most powerful biological system, the human immune system, the
disruptive technology leverages advances in mathematics and machine learning,
to learn the normal ‘pattern of life’ of every user and device on a network.
Antigena, its automatic response technology, acts as a digital antibody, taking
proportionate, remedial action to neutralize emerging threats. For example, it
can slow down or stop a compromised connection or device, but does not impact
normal business operations.

Darktrace’s AI technology alerted its
affected customers as soon as the first signs of WannaCry emerged on their
networks and as the malware was attempting to spread laterally across the
respective organizations. The infection was successfully contained before it
had inflicted any damage, proving the fundamental power of the Enterprise
Immune System.

“At Darktrace we catch
and contain ransomware every week,” commented Nicole Eagan, CEO at Darktrace.
“WannaCry bypassed traditional security defenses proving them futile in this
new era of cyber warfare. Security teams cannot face this challenge without the
right tools in place. Darktrace’s Enterprise Immune System is a true
manifestation of AI in action: detecting and stopping threats before the human
teams have even had time to notice.”