Boeing hit by WannaCry virus, fears it could cripple some jet production

[sl8]

Source: Seattle Times

Originally published March 28, 2018 at 3:16 pm Updated March 28, 2018 at 3:48 pm
By Dominic Gates
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

Boeing was hit Wednesday by the WannaCry computer virus, raising fears within the company that it could cripple some vital airplane production equipment.

Mike VanderWel, chief engineer at Boeing Commercial Airplane production engineering, sent out an alarming memo 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,” VanderWel wrote, adding that he’s concerned the virus will hit equipment used in functional tests of airplanes ready to roll out and potentially “spread to airplane software.”

Indicating widespread alarm within the company at the potential impact, VanderWel said the attack required “a battery-like response,” a reference to the 787 in-flight battery fires in 2013 that grounded the world’s fleet of Dreamliners and led to an extraordinary three-month-long engineering effort to find a fix.

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Read more: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-hit-by-wannacry-virus-fears-it-could-cripple-some-jet-production/

[matt819]

1. The fact that they hadnt protected themselves

Is not especially reassuring.

[Initech]

2. How much you want to bet that WannaCry has Russian origins?

Wouldn't surprise me in the least.

[wishstar]

3. There has been speculation the Atlanta attack could involve Russian retaliation too

[Gore1FL]

4. It has some NSA origins. It uses EternalBlue to propogate.

Last year's attacks were blamed on N. Korea.

[FakeNoose]

5. Isn't that where most of the viruses come from these days?

Kaspersky is probably working for Putin, one way or another.

[melm00se]

6. Defense against Wannacry

has been out for almost a year.

WTF have Boeing's IT departments been doing?

I sense a serious case of brown thumb disease.

[Maxheader]

7. Not good..

Worked at the lazy 'b' for ten years..and operations is sacred..
When the mechanics can't work everyone treads softly..

[Blue_Tires]

8. All the more reason why we need to bring back McDonnell-Douglas!

[The_jackalope]

10. And the DC-3...

[Bengus81]

9. Probably using it as an excuse to jack prices........

They can pay their top brass a FORTUNE yet they can't have an IT dept that can keep the latest defense against access to their computers?!?!

Whatever...they SUCKED subsidies,tax breaks,zero property tax etc,etc...out of Wichita and Kansas for DECADES and then blew town for cheap labor in Carolina,so my heart really bleeds for them. Then a second they announce their leaving town Spirit Aerospace suddenly appears to do work for them and people with 15/20/30 years get FIRED.


Pfffttt..........

[csziggy]

11. The article leads with alarming news, but the reality is less catastrophic

Still from the same article linked in the OP:

Even then, the afternoon statement was short on detail.

“Our cybersecurity operations center detected a limited intrusion of malware that affected a small number of systems,” it said. “Remediations were applied and this is not a production and delivery issue.”

Speaking Wednesday evening, Mills said the speculation in VanderWel’s message that some 777 production equipment might have gone down turned out not to be true.

She added that the attack was limited to computers in the Commercial Airplanes division and that the military and services units were not affected.

“To the best of our knowledge,” she said, the crisis is over and the attack did no significant damage.