Security News > 2020 > February > WannaCry ransomware attack on NHS could have triggered NATO reaction, says German cybergeneral
Western military alliance NATO could have reacted with force to the 2017 WannaCry ransomware outbreak that locked up half of Britain's NHS, Germany's top cybergeneral has said.
During a panel discussion about military computer security, Major General Juergen Setzer, the Bundeswehr's chief information security officer, admitted that NATO's secretary-general had floated the idea of a military response to the software nasty.
General Setzer said: "The secretary-general of NATO talked last year [about]... the WannaCry attack of 2017, [which] especially had consequences for hospitals in the UK, could also be a subject for the NATO.".
The German army officer said this supported the idea that military thresholds for responding to hacking attacks should be deliberately vague, adding that just because someone hacks you doesn't restrict you to only hacking them as a response.
At the invitation of a host government, Capt Wheeler said, US military cyber teams "Go out and work with them to operate on their networks, to look for this type of... malicious cyber activity." Once they find something of interest, they "Collect that malware, that information, and bring it back, be able to share that with commercial industry who can then get it out to everyone."
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