According to a report from the Seattle Times, a Boeing production plan in Charleston, South Carolina was the victim of the WannaCry ransomeware cyberattack on Wednesday. Mike VanderWel, the chief engineer at Boeing Commercial Airplane production engineer, sent out a company-wide memo to everyone calling for “all hands on deck.”
“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 is worried that the attack may have hit equipment used in functionally airplane tests, which could pose a serious threat to airplane software. The WannaCry ransomware operates by locking down machines, promoting system owners to pay a ransom that’s usually in cryptocurrency to resolve the issue and get their data back. Microsoft has worked hard to patch the limit of the virus’ spread since it’s attack is mainly via critical Windows vulnerability, but it’s not eliminated just yet.
