TL;DR

Wanna be safe? Then update all of your machines NOW.

Short story

If you’re afraid of current or persistent IT threads, there is a very effective but often overlooked method how you can increase your defenses: Update all of your systems now and keep them updated. For machines that are on the open internet it’s anyways a good habit, to install updates as soon as possible. Bonus points for automation.

Now with the ongoing Russia-Ukrainian war ongoing, it’s a reasonable possibility that some (other) nation state thread actors might decide to report and fix some zero day bugs now, to prevent another Eternal Blue disaster (WannaCry). This remains just a random claim, but it is not unsubstantiated. And it’s anyways a good idea to keep your systems up-to-date.

Second thing: check your legacy systems. They are often unmaintained and expose an entrance point for any kind of thread actor. That fancy box noone knows hat is on there and that is attached to the internet? Better figure out now, what it actually is there for. The old VPN we keep running because someone might still need it? Does it still comply with security protocols? Is it patched? Do you really really need it or is it an unnecessary and probably unmonitored access point that will be exploited if not tomorrow then next year when this is over and noone cars about it anymore?

Update and harden your systems now. Noone knows what the next weeka will bring. Be vigilant, install your updates and make sure, your backup automation is working.

Stay safe!