Russia’s Interior Ministry has confirmed they were hit by a cyber attack on Friday. The Russian telecom company Megafon was also hit and its support team operations have been damaged and their internal network affected, reports RT.com.
Costin Raiu, director of Global Research and Analysis Team at cyber security company Kapersky Labs, said: “Currently, we have recorded more than 45,000 attacks of the WannaCry ransomware in 74 countries around the world, mostly in Russia. It’s important to note that our visibility may be limited and incomplete and the range of targets and victims is likely much, much higher,” reports IBT. 74 countries around the world were hit by a ransomeware virus.
Russian Interior Ministry spokesman, Irina Volk, said the ministry “recorded a virus attack on the ministry’s personal computers controlled by a Windows operating system.”
“The virus has been localised. Technical work is under way to destroy it and renew the means of virus protection,” she said, reported AFP.
“We needed to partly turn off whole networks internally so the virus didn’t spread,” RIA Novosti news agency quoted MegaFon public relations director Pyotr Lidov as saying.
The New York Times reported the software used was a malicious program created by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as a malware tool. Hospitals around the world were locked out of their computers as well which could cost lives as medical treatment was interrupted.
U.K. medical facilities were especially hit and Prime Minister Theresa May said, “We are aware that a number of NHS organisations have reported that they have suffered from a ransomware attack. This is not targeted at the NHS, it’s an international attack and a number of countries and organisations have been affected.”
