Cybersecurity Consultant claims WannaCry hackers from southern China

A new analysis of the ransom note included with the global WannaCry Microsoft Windows malware hack earlier this month suggests that it may have originated in southern China. 

As reported by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), Flashpoint, a for-profit internet consultancy, claimed that a proprietary analysis of the language used in the ransom note attached to the WannaCry malware attacks indicates a southern China origin. 

Flashpoint, a US-based internet security consultancy, claimed that the ransom note was written by native Chinese-speakers with southern accents, from regions in or around the southern Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore, or possibly Taiwan, according to the report. 

Although



earlier reports suggested a North Korean origin for the malware, the US company's analysis asserts the south China origin with "high confidence," SCMP reports.

The targeted malware, which locks the data of a computer running certain versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system and displays a message in 28 languages demanding a cryptocurrency ransom to unlock the device, has affected over 300,000 computers in some 150 countries over the past two weeks, as infections continue to spread. 

The internet security company claimed that analysis revealed that the ransom note was written first in Chinese and then manually translated into English - before using Google Translate to convert the note into other languages.