A Boeing production plant in Charleston, South Carolina was hit by the WannaCry ransomwear cyberattack on Wednesday, according to a report from the Seattle Times. Mike VanderWel, the chief engineer at Boeing Commercial Airplane production engineering, sent out a company-wide memo calling for “all hands on deck.”
Boeing production plant hit with WannaCry ransomware attack
The widespread and devastating cyberattack reportedly from North Korea has hit a Boeing plant in Charleston
The widespread and devastating cyberattack reportedly from North Korea has hit a Boeing plant in Charleston
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
is a Senior Producer on Decoder. Previously, he reported on the technology and gaming industries for more than a decade.
“It is metastasizing rapidly out of North Charleston and I just heard 777 (automated spar assembly tools) may have gone down,” reads VanderWel’s memo, according to the Seattle Times. The company worries the virus may hit equipment used in functional airplane tests, which could lead to it spreading to airplane software.
WannaCry, which the Trump administration blames on the cyberterrorism unit of North Korea as of December 2017, attacked mainly via a critical Windows vulnerability, and its spread starting last May caused widespread alarm, with hospitals in the UK crippled in the initial wave of the attack. Variants of the virus then began popping up in more than 150 countries mere weeks later.
The virus operated by locking down machines, prompting system owners to pay a ransom typically in cryptocurrency to resolve the issue. Microsoft has issued patches to limit the virus’ spread, but that apparently has not completely eliminated it.
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