Most “Wannacry” Hacks Were On Windows 7 Machines

Last year's Wannacry attack was bad, but in many ways, it was a self-inflicted wound.  According Webroot's recently published "Annual Threat Report," almost all of the machines that succumbed to the Wannacry attack were running Windows 7.  That attack is estimated to have caused in excess of $4 billion in total losses.

The central problem is that businesses have been much slower than individuals to make the shift from Windows 7 to the much more secure Windows 10.  For example, in January 2017, only one Enterprise computer in five was running Windows 10, a figure which climbed to 32 percent by year's end.

Contrast that with the number of Enterprise computers running Windows 7.  In January 2017, a staggering 62 percent of Enterprise computers were still running Windows 7.  That figure declined as the year went on, but only marginally, dropping to 54 percent by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Windows 8 was running on 5 percent of Enterprise computers in January 2017, and had dropped to 4 percent by the end of the year.  Windows Vista and XP both represented a tiny fraction (less than 1 percent) of Enterprise OS's.

Contrast that to the Windows 10 migration figures for individuals.  In January 2017, 65 percent of home users had made to switch to Windows 10.  By the end of the year, that figure had grown to an impressive 72 percent.

A Webroot spokesperson had this to say about the report:

"While Windows 10 won't solve all security woes, it's a step in the right direction.  Combined with advanced endpoint protection that uses behavioral analysis and machine learning, adopting Windows 10 can greatly reduce enterprises' vulnerability to cyber-attacks."

All that to say, if you haven't moved away from outdated operating systems at your company, this is yet another compelling reason to do so immediately.  No matter what legacy systems you may be running that rely on old OS's, it's just not worth the risk.