The Gulf Information Security Expo and Conference was held in Dubai this year, and pundits at the event explained that contrary to breathless news reports, organizations and individuals can protect themselves.

Photo: Kemberly Groue.

he WannaCry ramsomware outbreak is responsible for damaging systems on major networks and affecting infrastructure by shutting down banks, transport systems, hospitals, and industry all over the world.

To prevent these kinds of attacks, experts say people and companies need to return to the fundamentals by installing basic updates.

Warren Mercer from intelligence firm Cisco Talos said patching systems is critical to cyber security. "This would have helped dramatically with WannaCry," Mercer said.

"It would have stopped it hitting infrastructure. The high-severity updates that are pushed out by companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Apple—they are not pushing them out for fun.They are pushing them out because of malicious and strong vulnerability."

Patches are security updates for operating systems.

Experts discussed means of defending against WannaCry at the conference, which ends today.The conference saw an attendance of some 6,000 people.

The malicious WannaCry worm spread to more than 150 countries since May 12. It also impinged upon the operations of train systems in Germany and computer networks at the Russian interior ministry.It resulted in delays and cancellations of treatment for patients in the U.K.due to attacks on the National Health System.