The EternalBlue exploit took the spotlight this month as it became the tie that bound the spate of malware attacks these past few weeks—the pervasive WannaCry, the fileless ransomware UIWIX, the Server Message Block (SMB) worm EternalRocks, and the cryptocurrency mining malware Adylkuzz.

EternalBlue (patched by Microsoft via MS17-010) is a security flaw related to how a Windows SMB 1.0 (SMBv1) server handles certain requests. If successfully exploited, it can allow attackers to execute arbitrary code in the target system. The severity and complexity of EternalBlue, alongside the other exploits released by hacking group Shadow Brokers, can be considered medium to high.

We further delved into EternalBlue’s inner workings to better understand how the exploit works and provide technical insight on the exploit that wreaked havoc among organizations across various industries around the world.