AMSTERDAM –
Multiple organizations around the world Friday, hit by a cyberattack. There are messages on computers to be held to ransom by so-called ransomware from the United States, Britain, China, Russia, Spain and Italy. Also in the Netherlands is warned of the virus.
In Great Britain is a large number of hospitals affected by the attack. Employees have their computers shut down and the hospitals have agreements to cancel and patients to move.
Alert on e-mail
The NCSC notifies “use extreme Caution when opening e-mail from non-trusted sources,” according to the center.
There is a warning sent to the “vital sectors”, such as gas-, water-, and electricity supply. Also hospitals are in this particular case, it warned, according to a spokeswoman.
According to security experts have the attacks to do with each other. “This is huge”, says one of them on Twitter.
36,000 detections or
#WannaCry (aka
#WanaCypt0r aka
#WCry)
#ransomware so far. Russia, Ukraine, and Taiwan leading. This is huge.
pic.twitter.com/EaZcaxPta4— Jakub Kroustek (@JakubKroustek)
May 12, 2017
In Spain, among others, were energy company Iberdrola and Gas company Gas Natural affected. Workers would be advised to have their computers off. Also telecomreus Telefonica was a victim, but the company let us know that customers and services were not affected. In Italy would a university are affected. Worldwide, there are already over 57,000 cases were identified.
A researcher from security firm Kaspersky said that the ransomware but preferably in 74 countries had surfaced and that the number continues to grow.
Shadow Brokers
According to the experts spread the virus rapidly, reports the BBC. It was going to be a new variant of the virus. Allows the use of a vulnerability in Windows that was recently published to the outside was brought in by computer hacker group Shadow Brokers. That leak, Microsoft has now poem, but not everyone has the update downloaded.
The Shadow Brokers made earlier this year of the American intelligence service NSA captured documents to the world. It was clear that the NSA’s knowledge of vulnerabilities in Windows had kept and ways had to be of those vulnerabilities to use to attack computers. Also, the NSA’s global bankverkeer in the holes are held to as visibility on cash flows.