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Shares in publicly traded cyber-security firms have risen sharply following attack. Tech companies specializing in security and network safety have pretty much all received... Cyber Security Stocks Surge After Wannacry Ransomware Scare

Shares in publicly traded cyber-security firms have risen sharply following attack.

Tech companies specializing in security and network safety have pretty much all received a substantial bounce since the Wannacry ransomware went global last week.

But then that’s hardly surprising. The scale of Wanancry means that governments and companies are set to substantially increase spending on IT security after being caught out by the attack. The questions is whether the sudden increase in investment will last more than a few months, as has usually been the case in the past.

Shares in publicly traded cyber-security firms have risen sharply following wannacry attack.

WannaCry malware attack has been good news for many security firms.

 

Others will follow Wannacry

The rampant success of Wannacry on a global level however, has security experts warning that similar attacks are far more likely in the future. Let’s not split hairs here. Unless we forget, Wannacry was originally only stopped by accident.

According to Krebs on Security, Wannacry attack may only have earned its perpetrators around $30,000 as of the weekend. So while the makers of Wannacry may not have made very much money considering they managed to encrypt something like 200,000 computers worldwide, it most certainly is not a win for IT admins anywhere. Instead the small amount gained may be more down to the fact that for the vast majority of people worldwide, Bitcoin, the payment method for disabling Wannacry, is still an abstract concept.

Bizarrely, Trump did something everyone agrees with

Technology stocks also recieved a boost last week, before Wannacry was even a thing for most of us. Last Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order on cybersecurity that, while vague, drew some praise from the cybersecurity industry. Cybersecurity is one of the few areas of US domestic policy left that shares bipartisan support.

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