One of a company’s worst nightmares goes a little something like this.

An employee boots up their computer at the beginning of the work day. A couple of minutes into work they get an email from someone who seems to be a coworker. They click the link without thinking, and a message flashes onto their screen:

“Your files have been encrypted. You have 24 hours to pay a fine of $500. If you do not pay the fine, your files will be permanently encrypted.”

Yesterday, for several companies across Europe and Asia and even in the United States, that nightmare became a reality.

WannaCry update from NSK

                WannaCry is far and away the most severe malware attack so far in 2017, and the spread of this troubling ransomware is far from over. This unprecedented malware attack began sweeping the globe late last week, and security researchers estimated that nearly 57,000 computers in more than 150 countries were infected by the end of the day on Friday. While the spread of this terrifying ransomware was slowed on Saturday, it was hardly stopped. As of Monday morning, more than 200,000 systems around the world are believed to have been infected.

In today’s ever changing landscape of Malware and network threats, visibility and control of protocols and applications, is a key element in providing a robust and manageable security posture for any organization. Cisco FirePOWER and AMP technology enables visibility and context based security across the whole network. Advanced Malware Protection or AMP for short, couples with big data analytics with a single pane of glass for management, discovering threats and keeping track of files as they are downloaded from the net or discovered on endpoints.