You guys really haven't heard of this yet? It's been a big deal for almost a week now. You'd have to live under a rock not to have heard of it at all. It's pretty brutal, and the worm uses exploits leaked from the NSA back in March. It's actually a plethora of exploits that were leaked, but this particular worm known as WannaDecrypt, WannaCry or some other names, is especially dangerous.
It essentially scans computers to see if they contain the update from Microsoft which patches the exploit. If the malware detects that the system is unpatched, it basically encrypts your entire drive with an encryption key which only the hackers will have access to. They then hold your data hostage and demand a ransom to recover it. The ransom price goes up the longer you wait, but obviously it's not recommended you pay anyways. Just say goodbye to your data. This is why backups are important.
Beyond that, the malware doesn't do any real physical harm to your system. Of course it being a worm, means it can spread throughout your home network in an instant, infecting all the computers connected to it. This is also true of public WiFi connections, as well as workplace networks.
Whether your updates are set up to install automatically or not, it's still worth checking to make sure no new updates are available. This exploit, along with others leaked from the NSA, affect every major Windows OS from XP to 10. I suggest you guys look it up, in case you're really unaware. It's one of the biggest infections of malware in a long time.
Edit: Also, I want to point out that even though Microsoft no longer officially supports Windows XP, they have released an update for XP to patch a lot of these exploits. This includes server editions of XP. If you're on Windows XP, you'll have to search for and apply this update manually. I'm not entirely sure if Microsoft is able to push updates out to XP automatically anymore.
