China’s Xinhua news agency said some of its schools and universities had been hit. Most stations had recovered. “Because they could have done something ages ago to get this problem fixed, and they didn’t do it”.
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Lawless reported from London. Rudiantara was speaking to reporters following reports that records and billing systems in at least one Indonesian hospital had been crippled.
CERT-In has been on an overdrive advising critical infrastructure agencies including banks, airports, telecom networks and stock markets to take precautions against the ransomware attack by downloading software “patches”. “An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the US military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen”.
It said Sunday that a similar cyberattack could also recur, though it did not have “specific evidence” of this.
“In cases of genuine (universal resource locators) URLs, close out the email and go to the organisation’s website directly through browser”, it said. “Even if a fresh attack does not materialize on Monday, we should expect it soon afterwards”, she said.
A malware attack kill switch was all it took to stop a global cyber assault from spreading in the USA this weekend, but before the brake was thrown thousands of computers in Europe and Russian Federation were affected and ransoms were demanded. “An Indian anti-virus company has identified patches of the virus and state’s cyber cell is working with the company to counter any cyber attack in Maharaashtra”, stated Brijesh Singh, Special Inspector General of Police (Cyber and PAW), Maharashtra.
The massive cyberattack ricocheting around the globe has reignited a debate: When should spy agencies disclose security vulnerabilities in companies’ software?
There are fears of further “ransomware” attacks as people return to work on Monday.
Deutsche Bahn: The German railway company told CNNMoney that due to the attack “passenger information displays in some stations were inoperative” as were “some ticket machines”. “Unfortunately, most people don’t have them”, Abrams says.
The country’s cyber security agency on Sunday alerted Internet users about a strong and globally active ransomware virus – “Wannacry”- that critically infects work-stations and locks them remotely.
Managers at many companies and other organizations have not taken steps to put proper cybersecurity systems in place despite talking about their importance, Gazeley said.
Who was behind the attack?
It was too early to say who was behind the onslaught, which struck 100,000 organizations, and what their motivation was, aside from the obvious demand for money. The patch was automatically applied for Windows 7 systems in March, but Windows XP users must download the patch to secure their system.
As similar widespread ransomware attacks were reported in Spain, Romania and elsewhere, experts warned that online extortion attempts by hackers are a growing menace. The cyber criminals have demanded a fee of about $300 in crypto-currencies like Bitcoin for unlocking the device. It crippled the British health care system for a day, infecting almost 20 percent of its health care groups, forcing medical treatments to be canceled or postponed for thousands of people.
Two researchers in their 20’s had halted the ransomeware attack on Saturday after discovering and activating the software’s “kill switch”.
“This attack provides yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem”, he said.
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Nissan: The carmaker said in a statement that “some Nissan entities were recently targeted” but “there has been no major impact on our business”.
