The Monday Awards: Today's News for May 15th

Welcome to the Monday Awards Show! We have a lot of trophies to hand out...

The Hill:

Global ransomware attack using stolen NSA tool hits 74 countries

A massive international ransomware campaign apparently using hacking tools stolen from the NSA struck computers across the world Friday, shuttering British hospitals and hobbling a Spanish telecom.

As many as 74 countries in all were hit by the attack.

The ransomware, named "WanaCrypt0r 2.0," appears to use the stolen NSA Windows hacking tool "Eternal Blue." Ransomware makes computers or files unusable until a victim pays a ransom.

If this software had been Russian, we would be discussing sanctions at this point.

Continuing:

One antivirus company alone reported capturing tens of thousands of instances of the apparently enormous ransomware attack.

“We have observed a massive peak in WanaCrypt0r 2.0 attacks today, with more than 36,000 detections, so far," Avast Threat Lab Team Lead Jakub Kroustek said in a statement.

According to Kroustek, most of the targets are in Russia, Ukraine, and Taiwan. But some of the most damaging attacks have taken place in western Europe.

British hospitals were forced to refuse patients after coming under the cyberattack, Reuters reported. The British National Health Service said in a statement that 16 NHS organizations were affected by the attacks.

On a side note, HUH?! A doctor suddenly becomes unable to treat a patient because the computer is down? News flash: 50 years ago, most doctor's offices did not have computers.

This reminds me of a story that happened to my daughter over the weekend. She had her prom Saturday night. Afterwards, they went to IHOP. After being served, they waited an hour for their bill. So they went to the cashier and asked about their bill, and were told their computer system was down so they couldn't process any bills.

At this point, this is where I would demand to see the manager, and demand I get a free meal or a manual bill (you know, handwritten like in the good old days). But what did my millennial daughter and her friends do? They went back to their table and waited for another hour, until the systems came back up.

To my daughter and all the millennials and the rest of the world waiting around while their computers are down:

On top of this stupidity, any wagers on whether the media or anyone else questions why the U.S. government needed to make such tools in the first place? Of course, with the computers down, I doubt anyone will have the brain power to come up with such a question.

But I bring up this old piece of news because:

New York Times:

Ransomware’s Aftershocks Feared as U.S. Warns of Complexity

The components of the global cyberattack that seized hundreds of thousands of computer systems last week may be more complex than originally believed, a Trump administration official said Sunday, and experts warned that the effects of the malicious software could linger for some time.

As a new workweek started Monday in Asia, there were concerns the malicious software could spread further and in different forms, with new types of ransomware afflicting computers around the globe.

There were initial reports of new cases found over the weekend in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

President Trump has ordered his homeland security adviser, Thomas P. Bossert, who has a background in cyberissues, to coordinate the government’s response to the spread of the malware and help organize the search for who was responsible, an administration official said Sunday.

This article even provides the answer for Trump:

The source of the attack is a delicate issue for the United States because the vulnerability on which the malicious software is based was published by a group called the Shadow Brokers, which last summer began publishing cybertools developed by the National Security Agency.

President Trump and the rest of the U.S. government gets the Pogo Award for their response:

Of course, none of the news of this mass stupidity seems to have penetrated the media's Right or Left, as they have ledes of questionable importance:

Fox News:

Trump's travel ban lands in Seattle appellate court

The latest legal showdown over President Trump’s revised executive order targeting refugees and nationals from six predominately Muslim countries hits a Seattle appellate courtroom Monday morning.

The key issue before a three-judge panel is whether the president’s comments before he took office – suggesting he would ban Muslims from entering the country -- provides sufficient legal grounds to rule his order unconstitutional. 

And the big news on the Left:

CNN:

No clear path for Trump to quell uproar over Comey

A reeling White House has no obvious path out of one of the most intense self-imposed crises in modern political history, as the shockwaves of President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey intensify.

Six days on, the administration is dealing with damaging consequences of that decision. The White House staff faces a credibility crisis following their shifting explanations for Comey's dismissal. Republican leaders in Congress are dealing with another unwelcome controversy ignited by their President. And Democrats are on offense, sensing an opening ahead of midterm elections next year.

So while the world's computers come under a ransomware attack which was created by the U.S. government in an attempt to spy on the world, the media's Right is worried about Muslims entering the country, while ignoring the perpetual war on Islam which created the Muslim problem in the first place. On the other side, the Left is running with last week's news because they don't like Trump and harping on what they perceive to be his error seems like a good thing to report.

The final award of the day goes to the mainstream media, of both Right and Left varieties: