Strengthening safety updates to detect and protect against new malicious ransomware Effectively protecting customers from the vulnerability

Microsoft notes that many of our customers around the world were victims of malicious “WannaCrypt” software. Today our engineers added detection and protection against new malicious software known as Ransom:Win32.WannaCrypt. In March, we provided additional protections against malware of this nature, with a security update that prevents the spread across networks. Those who are running our free antivirus software and have Windows Update enabled, are protected.

  • In March, we released a security update which addresses the vulnerability that these attacks are exploiting. Those who have Windows Update enabled are protected against attacks on this vulnerability. For those organizations who have not yet applied the security update, we suggest you immediately deploy Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010. For those who have installed our free anti-virus software, the ransomware should effectively be detected and cleared, we thus strongly recommend that users to implement Windows Update and continue to update to reduce the risk of malicious attacks.
  • For customers using Windows Defender, we released an update earlier today which detects this threat as Ransom:Win32/WannaCrypt. As an additional “defense-in-depth” measure, keep up-to-date anti-malware software installed on your machines. Customers running anti-malware software from any number of security companies can confirm with their provider, that they are protected. Today, Windows Defender can effectively detect and remove the aforesaid malicious malware; users can use this link to download Windows Defender:
    https://support.microsoft.com/zh-hk/help/14210/security-essentials-download.
  • We also know that some of our customers are running versions of Windows that no longer receive mainstream support. That means those customers will not have received the afore mentioned Security Update released in March. Given the potential impact to customers and their businesses, we made the decision to make the Security Update for platforms in custom support only, Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2003. Please download the respective security updates: Windows Server 2003 SP2 x64, Windows Server 2003 SP2 x86, Windows XP SP2 x64, Windows XP SP3 x86, Windows XP Embedded SP3 x86, Windows 8 x86, Windows 8 x64
  • Customers running Windows 10 were not targeted by the attack today, and with the security updates in March, customer data should be well protected. We strongly suggest customers to upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as possible, and actively consider the deployment of Microsoft enterprise-class cloud services to ensure that security measures are always up-to-date, to provide customers with the most powerful defense. Enterprise customers can contact Microsoft’s account managers at any time.

For more details, visit the latest blog from Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC).

For enquiries, please contact Microsoft Hong Kong’s customer service hotline:
+852 2388 9600


About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information, please contact:

Microsoft Hong Kong Limited

Alice Li
Tel: +852 2804 4130
Email: [email protected]

Hill+Knowlton Strategies for Microsoft

Fran Tam
Tel: +852 2894 6294
Email: [email protected]

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