Scale of the WannaCry attack
The WannaCry ransomware hack has infected organizations across nearly 100 countries around the world. In this part, we will understand the reach of this massive cyber attack.
Russia was hit hardest with nearly 1,000 computers within the interior ministry affected. The interior ministry, railways networks, banks, hospitals and Russia’s second largest telecom company Megafon had to stall their operations after the attack. However, the ministry’s vital servers were unaffected because they were running domestic Russian software.
WannaCry’s first victim was the National Health System in the United Kingdom.On Friday, 48 National Health Service units in England reported issues related to the malware while 13 NHS organizations in Scotland were disabled and had to turn down patients. In Sunderland, a northeastern city, a Nissan factory was also affected. Portugal Telecom’s systems were infected as well.
In India, several companies across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai suffered from the massive spread of the malware. Computers of the Andhra Pradesh police were hit. As per experts, India and China could be most vulnerable to this ransomware because of the large-scale use of outdated and pirated Windows operating systems along with the lack of proper security systems. The country was also forced to shut down all ATMs to prevent a potential attack.
French car maker Renault (RNO) had to shut down some factories in France and Romania because of infected systems. In Germany, electronic boards at stations were hacked. In Spain, telecom company Telefonica (TEF), power firm Iberdrola (IBE) and utility provider Gas Natural (EGAS) were affected.
Fedex (FDX), the logistics firm was also not spared as systems were interrupted on Friday. A FedEx spokesperson said, “Like many other companies, FedEx is experiencing interference with some of our Windows-based systems caused by malware.” They went on to explain that, “We are implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible.”
In China, many universities using outdated Windows systems were infected. The South China Morning Post also reported that petrol stations that were impacted in Chongqing with China National Petroleum Corp also experiencing problems.
In South Korea, the cinema chain CJ CGV reported cases of the ransomware at its advertisement servers. Overall, nine cases were reported by the South Korean government.
In Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, two hospitals reported cases of locked files due to the WannaCry malware. As per media reports, on Sunday the cyber attack had infected 400 computers in Jakarta’s hospitals, disrupting the registration of patients and finding records.
