Scientists Hope to Use Stem Cells to Reverse Death in Controversial Study

Researchers seem to be setting their sights on increasingly lofty goals when it comes to the human body – from the world’s first human head transplant, to fighting ageing, and now reversing death altogether. Yes, you read that right. A company called Bioquark hopes to bring people who have been declared clinically brain-dead back to life. The Philadelphia-based biotech company is expected to start on the project later this year.

This trial was originally intended to go forward in 2016 in India, but regulators shut it down. Assuming this plan will be substantially similar, it will enroll 20 patients who will undergo various treatments. The stem cell injection will come first, with the stem cells isolated from that patient’s own blood or fat. Next, the protein blend gets injected directly into the spinal cord, which is intended to foster growth of new neurons. The laser therapy and nerve stimulation follow for 15 days, with the aim of prompting the neurons to make connections. Meanwhile, the researchers will monitor both behavior and EEGs for any signs of the treatment causing any changes.

BACK FROM THE DEAD

Researchers seem to be setting their sights on increasingly lofty goals when it comes to the human body – from the world’s first human head transplant, to fighting aging, and now reversing death altogether. Yes, you read that right. A company called Bioquark hopes to bring people who have been declared clinically brain-dead back to life. The Philadelphia-based biotech company is expected to start on the project later this year.

This trial was originally intended to go forward in 2016 in India, but regulators shut it down. Assuming this plan will be substantially similar, it will enroll 20 patients who will undergo various treatments. The stem cell injection will come first, with the stem cells isolated from that patient’s own blood or fat. Next, the protein blend gets injected directly into the spinal cord, which is intended to foster growth of new neurons. The laser therapy and nerve stimulation follow for 15 days, with the aim of prompting the neurons to make connections. Meanwhile, the researchers will monitor both behavior and EEGs for any signs of the treatment causing any changes.

CONTROVERSIAL IDEAS

While there is some basis in science for each step in the process, the entire regimen is under major scrutiny. The electrical stimulation of the median nerve has been tested, but most evidence exists in the form of case studies. Dr. Ed Cooper has described dozens of these cases, and indicates that the technique can have some limited success in some patients in comas. However, comas and brain death are very different, and Bioquark’s process raises more questions for most researchers than it answers.

One issue researchers are raising about this study is informed consent. How can participants in the trial consent, and how should researchers complete their trial paperwork – given that the participants are legally dead —and how can brain death be conclusively confirmed, anyway? What would happen if any brain activity did return, and what would the patient’s mental state be? Could anything beyond extreme brain damage even be possible?

As reported by Stat News, In 2016, neurologist Dr. Ariane Lewis and bioethicist Arthur Caplan wrote in Critical Care that the trial is “dubious,” “has no scientific foundation,” and suffers from an “at best, ethically questionable, and at worst, outright unethical nature.” According to Stat News, despite his earlier work with electrical stimulation of the median nerve, Dr. Cooper also doubts Bioquark’s method, and feels “there is no way this technique could work on someone who is brain-dead. The technique, he said, relies on there being a functional brain stem — one of the structures that most motor neurons go through before connecting with the cortex proper. If there’s no functional brain stem, then it can’t work.”

Peadiatric surgeon Charles Cox, who is not involved in Bioquark’s work, agrees with Cooper, commenting to Stat News on Bioquark’s full protocol, “it’s not the absolute craziest thing I’ve ever heard, but I think the probability of that working is next to zero. I think [someone reviving] would technically be a miracle.”

Pastor remains optimistic about Bioquark’s protocol. “I give us a pretty good chance,” he said. “I just think it’s a matter of putting it all together and getting the right people and the right minds on it.”

References: Scientific American, Science, Stat News, Critical Care

What movies can you never get tired of watching?

Please write your 10 best favourite movies 🎥 in the comment box below .

My list (not in an order) - hard to choose 10 though🤔. These are the ones came to my mind first...... probably for a reason

1. The Matrix (1999)
2. One flew over the cuckoos nest (1975)
3. Forrest Gump (1994)
4. Interstellar (2014)
5. The Green Mile (1999)
6. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
7. The Godfather 1 & 2 (1972 &74)
8. When Harry met Sally (1989)
9. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)
10. The pursuit of Happiness (2006)

Please write your 10 favourite movies. And please don't forget to share this post to your friends..... Let us see what their favourites are 💞

New Research Shows That Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Isn’t Just “All in Your Head”

Researchers have discovered that people with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis have elevated levels of seven specific species of gut bacteria. This discovery could lead to targeted diagnostic tools and treatments for the disease.

CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME

Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) is a debilitating disorder. The fatigue and other symptoms it causes result in an inability to participate in the daily activities of life for many sufferers. Although more than one million Americans have ME/CFS — more than lupus, multiple sclerosis, and some types of cancer — there is not yet any treatment, or meaningful diagnostic tool. Four times as many women suffer from ME/CFS, and it lasts for years in some patients.

Although the disease was previously thought of as some kind of imaginary ailment, ME/CFS is now being taken seriously by researchers. This week, new research published in Microbiome reveals that people who have ME/CFS also have abnormal levels of specific gut bacteria — and the levels of bacteria vary with symptom severity.

“By identifying the specific bacteria involved, we are one step closer to more accurate diagnosis and targeted therapies,” head researcher Ian Lipkin said in a press release from the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) and the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University.

The team carefully matched, and then followed, 50 ME/CFS patients and 50 healthy controls. They took fecal and blood samples from all participants, and tested the fecal samples for bacterial species and the blood for immune molecules. Seven distinct species of intestinal bacteria were so strongly associated with ME/CFS that an accurate diagnosis could be predicted based on the elevated presence of all of them.

Although this study included a small sample, subject to further verification, this research could be the first step toward targeted diagnostic tools and treatments for the disease.

References: ScienceAlert - Latest, Microbiome Journal, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, CDC

New Research Shows That Time Travel Is Mathematically Possible

Physicists have developed a new mathematical model that shows how time travel is theoretically possible. They used Einstein's Theory of General Relativity as a springboard for their hypothetical device, which they call a Traversable Acausal Retrograde Domain in Space-time (TARDIS).

BENDING TIME

Even before Einstein theorised that time is relative and flexible, humanity had already been imagining the possibility of time travel. In fact, science fiction is filled with time travelers. Some use metahuman abilities to do so, but most rely on a device generally known as a time machine. Now, two physicists think that it’s time to bring the time machine into the real world — sort

“People think of time travel as something as fiction. And we tend to think it’s not possible because we don’t actually do it,” Ben Tippett, a theoretical physicist and mathematician from the University of British Columbia, said in a UBC news release. “But, mathematically, it is possible.”

Essentially, what Tippet and University of Maryland astrophysicist David Tsang developed is a mathematical formula that uses Einstein’s General Relativity theory to prove that time travel is possible, in theory. That is, time travel fitting a layperson’s understanding of the concept as moving “backwards and forwards through time and space, as interpreted by an external observer,” according to the abstract of their paper, which is published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.

Oh, and they’re calling it a TARDIS — yes, “Doctor Who” fans, hurray! — which stands for a Traversable Acausal Retrograde Domain in Space-time.

FEASIBLE BUT NOT POSSIBLE. YET.

“My model of a time machine uses the curved space-time to bend time into a circle for the passengers, not in a straight line,” Tippet explained. “That circle takes us back in time.” Simply put, their model assumes that time could curve around high-mass objects in the same way that physical space does in the universe.

For Tippet and Tsang, a TARDIS is a space-time geometry “bubble” that travels faster than the speed of light. “It is a box which travels ‘forwards’ and then ‘backwards’ in time along a circular path through spacetime,” they wrote in their paper.

Unfortunately, it’s still not possible to construct such a time machine. “While is it mathematically feasible, it is not yet possible to build a space-time machine because we need materials — which we call exotic matter — to bend space-time in these impossible ways, but they have yet to be discovered,” Tippet explained.

Indeed, their work isn’t the first to suggest that time traveling can be done. Various other experiments, including those that rely on photon stimulation, suggest that time travel is feasible. Another theory explores the potential particles of time.

However, some think that a time machine wouldn’t be feasible because time traveling itself isn’t possible. One points to the intimate connection between time and energy as the reason time traveling is improbable. Another suggests that time travel isn’t going to work because there’s no future to travel to yet.

Whatever the case may be, there’s one thing that these researchers all agree on. As Tippet put it, “Studying space-time is both fascinating and problematic.”

References: ScienceAlert, IOP Science, Phys. Org

Can WiFi cause cancer?

WiFi operates in the 2 to 5 GHz range - part of the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is in the same part of the spectrum where cell phones operate so I may refer to WiFi or cellphone electromagnetic radiation interchangeably. These are radio waves - no different than those used to broadcast television programs - except that they are higher in frequency. They aren't nearly as high a frequency as visible light - and no one worries about getting cancer from visible light (ultraviolet light, on the other hand, causes skin cancer - but this is the minimum energy necessary to cause ionizations that can cause breaks in strands of DNA - which is the mechanism by which cancer cells can be created). There is no credible evidence that non-ionizing radiation has any adverse health effects at all. There is no radiobiologic mechanism that could explain such an association - and absolutely no scientifically valid evidence that this has ever happened.

Dr Garry Larson MD, Medical Director- Procure Proton Therapy Center OKC states that he has treated patients with cancer for over thirty years as a board certified radiation oncologist and he is familiar with every carcinogenic agent known to man - He is with absolute certainty that radio waves cannot harm you (unless perhaps you were in the path of a multi-megawatt microwave beam in which case they might cook you - but as far as he knows, there is no likelihood that this danger even exists).

There has never been (and will never be) a randomised trial assessing the cause and effect relationship between radio frequency emissions and neoplastic disease. In order to have a randomised study, half of the randomly selected subjects would need to avoid cellphone use and that's not going to happen.

Humans have been exposed to man-made radio frequency radiation for over 100 years and we have always been exposed to microwave radiation from the Cosmos.

For example, the latency period for radiation induced malignancies is, on the average say 20 years, but epidemiologic studies of large groups of people (that only require a few thousand patients to reach stastistical significance) exposed to ionizing radiation start showing an increase above baseline by seven years. So conservatively, there should be at least a few excess cases of glioma, caused by cellular (or WiFi) electromagnetic radiation by now.

See this reference which looks at all the reported cases of gliomas caused by ionizing radiation (where we have a plausible explanation for cause and effect). Millions of people have received brain irradiation and only 73 cases of radiation induced gliomas have been reported.

A Report on Radiation-Induced Gliomas

We do have evidence that cellphones (or WiFi) do NOT cause an increase in brain tumors. Look at the time period over which cellphone use became common - say over the last twenty years. During that time, the incidence of brain tumours has remained absolutely flat. With over four billion people using cellphones (or WiFi) today, if there was any influence on the development of brain tumors, we would be seeing that by now.

The data from the National Cancer Institute below shows no increase in the incidence of primary brain tumours over the period of time that cell phones have been in use.

Say someone found a potential association between carrying coins in your pocket and the risk of a particular type of tumour. It would set off a frenzy of activity among a group of people who were convinced that this association was real. They would lobby for a law requiring that warning signs be placed on change machines. The effect would snowball until some people would demand that the government stop minting coins.

So lets review

There is no biologic mechanism to explain why non ionizing radiation (like the cellphone's emission of radio waves) could induce any type of tumour
We do have a mechanism to explain the association between ionizing radiation and tumour induction, but out of millions of people who have received radiation therapy to their brain, only 73 radiation induced gliomas have been reported in the world's literature.
For radiation induced neoplasms in general, epidemiologic studies can show an increase in the likelihood of tumours with only a few thousand people over a time period less than ten years

At least something on the order of millions (if not billions) of people have used cell phones for over two decades now and there is no evidence that the incidence of brain tumors has increased over that time period
Now lets get down to why this sort of irrational belief takes hold and, among other things, prompts five questions on this subject (at least that I have seen) in the time that I have been reading Quora (less than two months).

We have essentially no control over whether we live or die - except that we should avoid dangerous behaviours like smoking, becoming obese, not wearing seat belts, texting while driving, etc. Otherwise, over a trillion cells carry on countless biochemical processes that we have no control over. One out of four people will get cancer - beyond avoiding foolish behaviour, we can't influence that risk.

Since we have this subconscious, ever present fear of death (see below*), we employ magical thinking to give us a false sense of power over it. When we create artificial threats to our survival in our imagination - and then avoid practicing behaviours that make us vulnerable to those threats - we feel we have some power over whether we live or die. These are also know as superstitions.

Primitive cultures made sacrifices to imaginary gods so they wouldn't destroy their village - Children learn to avoid stepping on cracks - The germaphobe may engage in compulsive hand washing - and some people avoid putting their cellphone right next to their skin.

Vivek Murthy, MD, Replaced as Surgeon General of America

The Trump administration removed Vivek Murthy, MD, on April 21 from his position as surgeon general in the middle of his 4-year term.

His temporary replacement is a nurse, Sylvia Trent-Adams, RN, PhD, formerly the deputy surgeon general.

The 39-year-old Dr Murthy was a holdover from the Obama administration who was confirmed by the Senate in a mostly party-line 51-to-43 vote in December 2014. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that Dr Murthy was asked to resign and ""relieved of his duties"" after assisting the new administration in its transition. HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD, "thanks him for his dedicated service to the nation," according to the agency's news release, adding that Dr Murthy will continue to serve as a member of the US Public Health Service (USPHS) Commissioned Corps.
The USPHS Commissioned Corps and its 6600 uniformed health professionals are overseen by the surgeon general.

Surgeon generals have 4-year terms, and some have begun their term under one party's flag and finished it — or served out much of it — under another flag. The most recent example was former Surgeon General David Satcher, MD, PhD, a Bill Clinton appointee who completed his 4 years during the George W. Bush administration.

HHS did not give a reason why Dr Murthy was relieved of his duties. However, his track record holds some possible clues. Senate Republicans opposed his nomination in part because they viewed him as a political partisan. During the 2008 presidential election, Dr Murthy co-chaired a group called Doctors for Obama, and he later helped lead a successor group called Doctors for America that supported passage of the Affordable Care Act. He also incurred the wrath of the National Rifle Association and its congressional allies for declaring gun violence a public health issue.
Georges Benjamin, MD, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, said he was surprised by Dr Murthy's dismissal.

"I knew he anticipated completing his four years," Dr Benjamin told Medscape Medical News, noting that he had been in touch with Dr Murthy. "He was expecting to do that."
The Trump administration's removal of Dr Murthy "is another way of politicizing the job, which is inappropriate," said Dr Benjamin. "The reason why the surgeon general has a term is to depoliticize the position."
Efforts to reach Dr Murthy for an interview were unsuccessful. However, he did speak for himself in a post on his Facebook page. There, he said that he had been terminated for taking a principled stand.
"Many have asked why I chose not to resign as Surgeon General when I was asked to do so," he wrote. "My reason was simple: because I would never willfully abandon my commitment to my Commissioned Corps officers, to the American people, and to all who have stood with me to build a healthier and more compassionate America."

Lesson Learned: "Choose Love"

Before serving as surgeon general, Dr Murthy was a hospitalist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. He also cofounded a nonprofit group promoting HIV/AIDS education and a company that makes software for clinical trials.
One of Dr Murthy's top priorities as surgeon general was what he called "tobacco and drug-free living." To that end, he sent a letter to more than 1 million prescribers in November 2016 asking them to help battle the opioid epidemic, in part through better prescribing habits. Later that month, he released a major report on substance abuse that was likened to the surgeon general's landmark report on smoking issued in 1964.
In December 2016, Dr Murthy followed up with a report that called e-cigarettes a public health crisis for the nation's youth.
"I thought he was visible on the right issues," said the APHA's Dr Benjamin.
In another post on his Facebook page, Dr Murthy reflected on his brief tenure as surgeon general.

"For the grandson of a poor farmer from India to be asked by the president to look out for the health of an entire nation was a humbling and uniquely American story," he wrote. "While I had hoped to do more to help our nation tackle its biggest health challenges, I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to have served."
He listed a number of lessons he picked up on the job.

"We will only be successful in addressing addiction — and other illnesses — when we recognize the humanity within each of us," he wrote. "People are more than their disease. All of us are more than our worse mistakes."
And this: "The world is locked in a struggle between love and fear. Choose love. It is the world's oldest medicine."

Dr Murthy said the nation will be in "capable and compassionate hands" with Dr Trent-Adams taking over as acting surgeon general.
A 24-year veteran of the USPHS Commissioned Corps, Dr Trent-Adams has served as chief nursing officer of the USPHS and the deputy associate administrator for the HIV/AIDS Bureau in HHS. Before joining the USPHS Commissioned Corps, she was a nurse in the US Army and a research nurse at the University of Maryland.

We Now Have an App That Can Activate Cells That Manage Diabetes

A new device allows researchers to control insulin-producing cells implanted in mice with a smartphone app.

While there is much work yet to do before human trials are possible, the device may one day mean diabetic maintenance without needles.

AN APP FOR DIABETES

For people with diabetes, insulin injections are often an inevitable part of life. However, a new device created by Chinese researchers and tested in mice may make needles a thing of the past. The team implanted insulin-producing cells into diabetic mice and then used a smartphone app to “switch” those cells on. Within two hours, the blood sugar levels of the mice were stabilised by the device, which its creators are calling HydrogeLED.

To date, the device in its most advanced form — a hydrogel capsule the size of a coin — can be implanted under a mouse’s skin. The capsule contains the insulin-producing cells and LED lights. The cells are engineered release insulin only when those lights turn on.

The mouse’s blood sugar levels can be monitored with a separate Bluetooth-enabled glucometer that alerts the app when levels climb too high. The app will then switch on the LEDs, triggering the release of insulin. The user can also manually control how bright the LEDs are and how long they shine, thus controlling how much insulin the cells make.

A PROMISING START

There is no doubt that this is an amazing development, but it remains limited for now. The mice are confined within an electromagnetic field coil that acts much like a smart home hub; this is how the app can communicate with the server. The LEDs are powered by the electromagnetic field itself, which means that the entire system would stop working outside the coil.

In human terms, for the app to work reliably at this point, the patient would need to stay on permanent house arrest. Furthermore, the device in its current form still tests blood sugar with a needle.

Future versions of the HydrogeLED will ideally solve both of these issues. According to Popular Science, study author Haifeng Ye plans for 24-hour monitoring of blood sugar with a built-in glucometer that automatically triggers LEDs when insulin is needed. Also, incorporating batteries would allow patients to be totally mobile.

The HydrogeLED is not yet ready for human trials. Ye and his team have tested it over the course of 15 days in several animals, but will need to test it in more varieties of larger animals for longer periods of time. In addition, to ensure that the device won’t trigger an immune response or rejection in users, the team must ensure that all the materials in each component are safe for implantation.

That said, the HydrogeLED has the potential to change the way patients handle diabetes, making treatments more discreet and effective.

References: Popular Science, Science Translational Medicine

New planet that is size of Neptune discovered:

Astronomers have discovered a `lost' planet about the size of Neptune tucked away in a solar system 3,000 light years from Earth. The new planet, Kepler-150 f, was overlooked for several years, according to researchers at the Yale University in the US.

Computer algorithms identify most such “exoplanets“, which are planets located outside our solar system. The algorithms search through data from space mission surveys, looking for the telltale transits of planets orbiting in front of distant stars.

However, sometimes the computers miss something.In this case, it was a planet in the Kepler-150 system with a long orbit around its sun. Kepler-150 f takes 637 days to circle its sun, one of the longest orbits for any known system with five or more planets.

Nasa's Kepler Mission had found four other planets in the Kepler-150 system several years ago. All of them have orbits much closer to their sun than the new planet does.“Only by using our new technique of subtracting out the transit signals of known planets could we then actually see it for what it really was.Essentially , it was hiding in plain sight in a forest of other planetary transits,“ said a student of Yale.

Soon, you could upload your thoughts to a computer !

New Firm Working On Merging Brains And Computers

Tesla Inc founder and chief executive Elon Musk has laun ched a company called Neuralink Corp through which computers could merge with human brains, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Neuralink is pursuing what Musk calls the “neural lace“ technology , implanting tiny brain electrodes that may one day upload and download thoughts, the Journal reported. Musk has not made an official announcement, but Neuralink was registered in California as a “medical research“ firm, and he plans on funding the company mostly by himself, a person briefed on the plans said. It is unclear what sorts of products Neuralink might create, but people who have had discussions with the company describe a strategy similar to space launch company SpaceX and Tesla, the Journal report said. The technique could be used to improve memory or give humans added artificial intelligence.According to the Journal, leading academics in the field have been signed up to work at the company which is being funded privately by Musk, whose name is also tied to ambitious projects in space and electric cars. Specialists in the field envision a time when humans may be able to upload and download thoughts. In a tweet, Musk confirmed the existence of the company and said more details about the firm would be made public next week.

As well as heading electric car maker Tesla, Musk is involved with running space exploration company Space X, a project to reinvent transport called Hyperloop and, most recently , a firm investigating the feasibility of boring tunnels underneath Los Angeles -and a new project to power Australia. Tweeting about Neuralink, Musk conceded it would be “difficult to dedicate the time, but existential risk is too high not to“.

The hurdles involved in developing these devices are immense.Neuroscience researchers say we have very limited understanding about how the neurons in the human brain communicate, and our methods for collecting data on those neurons is rudimentary . Then there's the idea of people volunteering to have electronics placed inside their heads.

What is Ransomware and how to protect your computer against the ransomware attack

Massive Ransomeware attack...More than 75 countries affected...Please do not open any email which has attachments with *"tasksche.exe"* file. Expecting more havoc in this week ....Share this to everyone within your network please.....

Friday’s ransomware outbreak, which used recently revealed weaknesses in Microsoft’s Windows operating system to spread further and faster than any before, has prompted the Redmond-based developer to break its own rules on software maintenance in an effort to keep users safe.

The ransomware, also known as “WanaCrypt0r”, “WeCry”, “WanaCrypt” or “WeCrypt0r”, used a vulnerability in a Windows Server component to spread within corporate networks. The weakness was first revealed to the world as part of a massive dump of software vulnerabilities discovered by the NSA and then stolen by a group of hackers calling themselves “Shadow Brokers”.

Microsoft fixed the flaw shortly before the stolen data was published, leading many to conclude it had been surreptitiously tipped-off by the security agency about the existence of the flaw.

If your computer’s running on Microsoft Windows, you need to take these steps—right away.

Here’s why: in case you haven’t heard, hackers exploited a vulnerability in older Microsoft Windows servers to execute a large-scale global cyberattack on Friday using ransomware — a malicious software that holds your computer hostage for ransom — and a hacking tool stolen from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The massive attack left victims locked out of their PCs with a promise of restored access if $300 was paid in digital currency Bitcoin—and a threat of destroyed files if the ransom is not met.

If your computer’s running on Microsoft Windows, you need to take these steps—right away.

Here’s why: in case you haven’t heard, hackers exploited a vulnerability in older Microsoft Windows servers to execute a large-scale global cyberattack on Friday using ransomware — a malicious software that holds your computer hostage for ransom — and a hacking tool stolen from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The massive attack left victims locked out of their PCs with a promise of restored access if $300 was paid in digital currency Bitcoin—and a threat of destroyed files if the ransom is not met.

Ransomware does not typically work this quickly. But thanks to a stolen NSA cyber-weapon called EternalBlue, which was made public last month by a hacking group known as the “Shadow Brokers,” the malware spread rapidly by exploiting a security flaw in Microsoft Windows servers.

What users need to do

Simply put: make sure your Microsoft Windows server is up to date. Microsoft issued a patch in mid-March to fix the hole in Windows 7 and other supported versions of Windows: Vista, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, 8.1, Server 2012, RT 8.1, 10, Server 2012 R2, and Server 2016. But those who did not apply the software update were—and still are—left exposed to the hack.

In light of the attack, Microsoft rolled out patches to protect older versions of Windows that “no longer receive mainstream support” from the company like Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2003. Those running on Windows 10 are fine, as their software is not vulnerable to this particular cyberattack. Devices that are potentially susceptible are Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, and earlier operating systems.

Microsoft recommends users upgrade to Windows 10 and install the security update MS17-010. With the 1.243.297.0 update, Windows Defender Antivirus detects the malware as Ransom:Win32/WannaCrypt. The company also recommends Device Guard for businesses and Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection for blocking emails carrying malware.

What happens if you don’t take protective measures?

Even if you don’t actively download the file from a phishing email, your device could be at risk—the ransomware also spreads through file-sharing systems on networks. Microsoft explains that the worm-like functionalities of the ransomware infects “unpatched Windows machines in the local network” and “executes massive scanning on Internet IP addresses to find and infect other vulnerable computers.”

Infected devices will find the desktop background image replaced with a message, calling for the user to follow instructions until they reach the ransom screen. Here, there are two timers—one showing the amount of time left until files will be deleted and a second displaying time until the ransom will increase from $300.

At this point, people have two choices: pay up and hope their device is restored, or part ways with the contents of their computer. The U.S. government recommends not paying ransoms, as shelling out money does not certify the data will be recovered and succumbing to cybercriminals may encourage future attacks. But that’s easier said than done, when it’s your own files that have been hijacked.

How common is ransomware?

More common than you’d think. NPR reports that 40 percent of spam emails last year contained ransomware attachments. And the ransomware-related extortion industry is growing. In 2015, ransomware victims reported $24 million in total annual costs (e.g. ransom, tech support, security software), Reuters reported last year. In just the first three months of 2016, the reported expenses were already at $209 million.

General, good-sense advice: remotely back up your files on a regular basis. This way you’ll never have to give in to a ransomware request if and when your device is compromised. And, of course, always stay up-to-date with your computer’s software.

Have you checked out the patches released by Microsoft in March? Here’s the link, if it helps:

https://technet.microsoft.com/…/lib…/security/ms17-010.aspx…

( Courtesy: Susmitha B)