On May 13, over 75,000 Microsoft users in 99 countries were targeted, making this one of the biggest cyberattacks in history. Europol reported that this attack was of an “unprecedented level and  and requires international investigation,” implying that other agencies representing affected countries will get involved. Avast Antivirus, a cybersecurity firm, reported over 75,000 WannaCry ransomware cases where the malware completely took over ones hard drive and demanded ransom to unlock files.

 The malware is only affecting operating systems of Windows that are older than Windows 10, though. The security measures in Windows 10 prevented this attack from hitting any recent operating systems, but still managed to affect hospitals, major corporations, and political offices. The majority of the attacks were based in Ukraine, Russia, and Taiwan, but other attacks seemed to be scattered around the globe.

 It was reported that the ransomware would begin with an initial fee of $300, of which most of the victims paid quickly to recover their files. If the fee was not paid within 6 hours, the ransom was raised. It is unknown where this malware is sourced from, as. Efforts to reverse the damage are stagnant as it is hard to counteract this kind of ransomware. There are no reported cases in the United States, but companies based within the U.S. such as FedEx were affected in the United Kingdom.