Foundation Skills for Academic Research: WannaCry Ransomware Essay

This essay provides a detailed analysis of the WannaCry ransomware cyber-attack, examining three distinct threat communication techniques: Narrative Fear Appeal, Vivid Messaging, and Observational Learning. The essay explores how these methods influence individuals' perceptions and responses to the threat, including maladaptive behaviors. It delves into the design, manipulation checks, measures, and data collection methods used to evaluate each technique's effectiveness. The study also examines the impact of these communication strategies on user behavior, utilizing various methods such as narrative fear appeal, vivid messaging, and observational learning. The research involves pilot tests with undergraduate students to assess the impact of each technique. The essay also references several studies and articles to support its findings and conclusions on how these techniques are applied to educate people about the threat and promote security.

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TITLE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The essay describes a ransomware cyber-attack called WannaCry that has affected
many computers around the globe. The purpose of this essay is to describe three different
types of threat communication to identify the virus WannaCry. The essay tries to explore
various aspects of threat communication by informing computer people about the threats of
WannaCry. The essay explains a threat with regards to a computer system which has the
potential to harm the system as well as individuals associated with them. The next sections of
the essay describes three different kinds of Threat Communication techniques and the faulty
adaptation of beliefs and attitudes related to the virus WannaCry . The essay further
describes the effects of these techniques by using various methods such as Design,
Manipulation Checks, Measures and Data Collection and Cleaning.
By using Narrative Fear Appeal, WannaCry virus can be distributed in narrative
form on various social platforms such as newspapers, brochures and websites. A fear appeal
is a strategy which arouses certain actions to be taken while instigating fear in minds of the
people. It is a persuasive message that presents a risk and then suggests a form of protective
behaviour. In this type of threat communication, if the receiver of the message does not see a
threat to him/her due to the virus and neither does he/she notice any harm due to be caused to
any of the near and dear ones , the person develops the tendency to ignore the information of
WannaCry as a threat to life and property. It defined the design of WannaCry ransomware as
a malware that secretively conceals files on a person’s computer. According to Chen &
Bridges (2017), it victimizes individuals, businesses and organizations. To make sure that the
narrative was read by receivers, two attention check questions were put in the news report
section. It measures the level upto which the fear of WannaCry is there in cyber users. In the
Narrative Fear Appeal ,the questions relating to threat appraisal always appear first
followed by questions of fear, and then questions of coping with appraisal. To analyse the
Narrative fear appeal, a pilot test was conducted by taking 64 undergraduate students. After

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analysis, it was found that half of them had heard of ransomware before. After this analysis ,
it was found that recipients of Narrative Fear Appeal produced the most non-immediate
language while discussing WannaCry virus. According to James (2017), managers can give a
message to employees to inculcate this approach in their work behaviours to adjust
vulnerability to threats of WannaCry.
By using Vivid Messaging , a memorable impression of the information can be
conveyed to receivers. This method of threat communication uses immersive virtual
environment technology which affect proenvironmental attitudes and behaviours. While
conveying information about the WannaCry virus, Vivid Messaging focuses on portraying
media such as Google reports, images and statistics that eventually motivates people to take
cautionary measures against the virus to protect their computers from getting affected by that
virus .In order to test hypotheses related to WannaCry, a research design was implemented to
understand how an individual understands the threat and how can he/she provide solutions to
solve the threat. Vivid Messaging, in this regard, provided a two-minute video to participants
to understand the concept of ransomware. As stated by Marett, Vedadi & Durcikova
(2019),this type of vivid communication advises people not to visit questionable sites, to
regularly keep a check on update of anti-virus software. By measuring the fear level of
WannaCry, experimental variables were randomly assigned to different tasks. It was seen that
the Vivid Fear Appeal offered more clarity than Narrative Fear Appeal. The report was
comparatively rated more vivid as compared to the narrative fear approach.Content variables
were measured by associating them with maladaptive behaviour. Second-hand language
indications were taken into consideration such as confusion, restraint and inexactness,
negative terminology and disinterest.The data collected in this method found that participants
needed to be at least 23 years old and should be using computers at least 10 hours on a daily
basis. It was found that Internet was used 39.1 hours daily. Social Media helped to make

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people aware of threat communication and information .In Vivid Messaging, the participants
could not produce dramatic results as was the case with Narrative Fear Appeal ,but still they
followed the same trends .
By using Observational Learning, individuals can understand what they are capable
of achieving. This is a learning process which does not need reinforcement and works on
classical conditioning in which an instinctive behaviour is adapted by seeing the behaviour of
another., It helps the individual to better his/her own performance by making standards of
others’ performance accessible to them. In this type of Threat Communication, the individual
has to attentively listen to instructions regarding the virus WannaCry and the processes
involved must be attained by the learner for future use. According to Sahi (2017), this type of
threat communication motivates the learning techniques of individuals.To test the design of
the sample virus, a sample of WannaCry was provided to participants and were shown a two-
minute video on combating the virus on their laptops .This involved setting-up anti-virus
updates on their systems. By doing manipulation checks, individuals reported the least fear of
ransomware in observational learning. The report was rated significantly more vivid than
narrative and vivid messaging . According to Adams (2018), Observational Learning
involved analysis of five components of the virus WannaCry which were : Ambivalence,
Denial, Passivity, Anxiety and Tentativeness. These were summed up for every individual
response and dependent variables were calculated as percentage of overall words expressing
remoteness which was later known as MacPct ranging from 0 -100 % .For data collection ,a
pilot test was conducted on 64 undergraduate students having minimum 23 years as age and
working 10 hours per week on computers. According to Koehler and Sidki (2018), results of
Observational learning showed that average age of respondents was 38.3 years having 60 %
females. 85 % had completed college and around 54 % had either a graduate or post-graduate
degree. It was concluded that they consumed Internet 39 hours per week. After this analysis,

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it was found that the level of remoteness got reduced. According to Mohurle & Patil (2018),
a high degree of remoteness was observed in discussion of response costs in observational
learning .High costs associated in dealing with threats of WannaCry virus predicted future
faulty behaviours.
The essay concludes on the note that communication of threat information of the virus
WannaCry to individuals is being done as a way of promoting safety and security of the
concerned person or entity. This essay attempts to explain the above three types of threat
communication and how they help to motivate individuals by engaging in protective
behaviour. Post analysis, it was found that entities , whether persons or computers display
more language elaboration when subjected to narrative fear appeal . According to Kiruri &
Kamau (2018), computers or persons receiving vivid messaging display more language
quantity than those receiving a narrative fear appeal. As stated by Zhesterov (2018), little
information is there regarding how people attribute the above mentioned threat
communication techniques and how can they educate individuals about information security
threats.

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REFERENCES
Adams, C. (2018). Learning the lessons of WannaCry. Computer Fraud & Security, 2018(9),
6-9.
BRANQUINHO, M. A. (2018). RANSOMWARE IN INDUSTRIAL CONTROL
SYSTEMS. WHAT COMES AFTER WANNACRY AND PETYA GLOBAL
ATTACKS?. WIT Transactions on The Built Environment, 174, 329-334.
Chen, Q., & Bridges, R. A. (2017, December). Automated behavioral analysis of malware: A
case study of wannacry ransomware. In 2017 16th IEEE International Conference on
Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA) (pp. 454-460). IEEE.
James, R. (2017). The Wannacry Virus Analyzed.
Kiruri, K., & Kamau, L. (2018). LESSONS ON CYBER SECURITY: A CASE STUDY OF
WANNACRY RANSOMWARE. In JKUAT ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
PROCEEDINGS (pp. 192-198).
Koehler-Sidki, A. (2018). Building a secure, quantum internet for the future: will the UK’s
science policy keep up?.
Mohurle, S., & Patil, M. (2017). A brief study of wannacry threat: Ransomware attack
2017. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 8(5).
Sahi, S. K. (2017). A Study of WannaCry Ransomware Attack. International Journal of
Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering, 4(9), 5-7.

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Schirrmacher, N. B., Ondrus, J., & Ter Chian Felix Tan. (2018). Towards a Response to
Ransomware: Examining Digital Capabilities of the WannaCry Attack. In PACIS (p.
210).
Zhesterov, P. (2018). From visible pasts to an invisible presence: new criminological reality
after planetary cyber-attack 12/05/17 Wannacry. Przegląd Wschodnioeuropejski, 9(2),
55-67.
Marett, K., Vedadi, A., & Durcikova, A. (2019). A quantitative textual analysis of three types
of threat communication and subsequent maladaptive responses. Computers &
Security, 80, 25-35.