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WannaCry: the global ransomware stopped by a $10.69 domain

On Friday, 12 May 2017 , hospital staff across England walked up to their computers and found a red window demanding Bitcoin. Ambulances were diverted. Appointments were cancelled.

  • WannaCry ransomware affected over 150 countries on May 12, 2017
  • Exploited EternalBlue flaw in outdated Windows SMBv1 protocol
  • Marcus Hutchins registered kill switch domain for $10.69 to stop spread

Trojans: the malware you invite in, and how the FBI uninstalled it

The original Trojan Horse did not knock down the walls of Troy. The Trojans pulled it inside themselves , because it looked like a gift.

  • Trojans disguise as harmless files/software, tricking users into installing them
  • FBI dismantled Emotet network in 2021, then Qakbot in 2023, seizing millions in crypto
  • Human trust exploited by trojans, but authorities can neutralize threat with proper tactics

It broke again: a short about the same bug coming back, and the incident note I write now

Episode 2 of our Rozz shorts is about a bug that comes back. Customers got three payment emails for one invoice. Rozz opens the Incidents dashboard, then the incident note, and works through it…

  • Customers received duplicate payment emails for a single invoice
  • Bug caused by webhook handler being slower than provider's timeout
  • Incident note outlines Symptom, Root Cause, Fix, and Prevention

👻 — Hidden Bids, Trustless Auctions on Stellar

👻 SealBid: The Ghost Auction — Where Every Bid Is Hidden Until It's Time This is my submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 4: Ghost in the Machine .

  • SealBid operates on Stellar blockchain using Soroban smart contracts
  • Commit-reveal mechanism ensures privacy and trustlessness
  • Ghost aspect symbolizes unseen influence in decentralized auctions

Approval fatigue: the rubber stamp is worse than no lock at all

Approval #1 gets careful reading. Approval #12 gets a glance. Approval #25 gets a blind tap. That's not a discipline problem.

  • Approval fatigue degrades careful reading into blind tapping
  • 30 approvals take 7.5 minutes of decisions, but 90 minutes of refocus
  • Better-structured approvals, batch processing, and queue management fix issue

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