A ransomware attack appears to be spreading around the world, leveraging a hacking tool that may have come from the U.S. National Security Agency.

The ransomware, called Wanna Decryptor, struck hospitals at the U.K.’s National Health Service on Friday, taking down some of their network.

Spain’s computer response team CCN-CERT has also warned of a "massive attack" from the ransomware strain, amid reports that local telecommunications firm Telefonica was hit.

The ransomware, also known as WannaCry, works by leveraging a Windows vulnerability that came to light last month when a cache of mysterious hacking tools was leaked on the internet.

The tools, which security researchers suspect came from the NSA, include an exploit codenamed EternalBlue that makes hijacking older Windows systems easy. It specifically targets the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol in Windows, which is used for file-sharing purposes.

Microsoft has already patched the vulnerability, but only for newer Windows systems. Older ones, such as Windows Server 2003, are no longer supported, but still widely used among businesses, according to security experts.

That may have painted a giant bulls-eye for hackers to target these systems. The developer of Wanna Decryptor appears to have added the suspected NSA hacking tools to the ransomware’s code, said Matthew Hickey, the director of security provider Hacker House, in an email.

Security firm Avast said it has detected the ransomware, largely attacking Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan.

Another security research firm, MalwareTech, has created a page monitoring the attacks. They appear to have gone worldwide.

The Wanna Decryptor ransomware strikes by encrypting all the files on an infected PC, along with any other systems on the network the PC is attached to. It then demands a ransom of about $300 to $600 in bitcoin to release the files, threatening to delete them after a set period of days if the amount is not paid.

Security experts are urging organizations to patch vulnerable systems, upgrading to the latest versions of OSes, and making backups of any critical files. </s> Just over a month after the devastating WannaCry ransomware wreaked havoc worldwide, businesses and governments were hit with yet another massive cyberattack sweeping across the globe. On Tuesday, a malware based on Petya — a ransomware that first began making the rounds in 2016 — struck thousands of computers in Ukraine and Russia before spreading throughout Europe and elsewhere.

Some researchers have dubbed the new variant "NotPetya" or "GoldenEye" while some are calling it PetrWrap. Similar to WannaCry, the malware uses the Eternal Blue exploit as one of the means to propagate itself inside a targeted network, takes control of the infected machine and demands $300 (£234) in bitcoin before a victim can regain access.

The ransomware has already affected multiple high-profile firms including Britain's advertising giant WPP, Cadbury in Tasmania, Danish shipping company AP Moller-Maersk, French construction materials firm Saint-Gobain, Russian steel and oil companies Evraz and Rosneft

Ukrainian government departments, the central bank, the airport in Kiev and the metro network have all been affected by the cyberattack as well.

Here is the full list of countries affected by the attack as of the morning of 28 June, 2017: </s> investigators hunted for those behind an unprecedented cyber-attack that affected systems in dozens of countries, including at banks, hospitals and government agencies, as security experts sought to contain the fallout.

The assault, which began Friday and was being described as the biggest-ever cyber ransom attack, struck state agencies and major companies around the world — from Russian banks and British hospitals to FedEx and European car factories.

"The recent attack is at an unprecedented level and will require a complex investigation to identify the culprits," said Europol, Europe's police agency.

Europol said a special task force at its European Centre was "specially designed to assist in such investigations and will play an important role in supporting the investigation".

The attacks used ransomware that apparently exploited a security flaw in operating systems, locking users' files unless they pay the attackers a designated sum in the virtual currency

Images appeared on victims' screens demanding payment of $300 in Bitcoin, saying: "Ooops, your files have been encrypted!"

Payment is demanded within three days or the price is doubled, and if none is received within seven days the files will be deleted, according to the screen message.

But experts and government alike warn against ceding to the hackers' demands.

"Paying the ransom does not guarantee the encrypted files will be released," the US Department of Homeland Security's computer emergency response team said.

"It only guarantees that the malicious actors receive the victim's money, and in some cases, their banking information."

Experts and officials offered differing estimates of the scope of the attacks, but all agreed it was huge.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the Helsinki- based cyber security company F-Secure, told AFP it was the biggest ransomware outbreak in history, saying that 130,000 systems in more than 100 countries had been affected.

He said and India were hit particularly hard, largely because Microsoft's Windows XP — one of the operating systems most at risk — was still widely used there.

French police said there were "more than 75,000 victims" around the globe, but cautioned that the number could increase "significantly".

The virus spread quickly because the culprits used a digital code believed to have been developed by the US National Security Agency — and subsequently leaked as part of a document dump, according to researchers at the Moscow-based computer security firm Kaspersky Lab. </s> LONDON - Cyber security experts scrambled Saturday to contain the impact of an unprecedented global cyber-attack that hit Russia’s banks, British hospitals, FedEx and European car factories.

The hunt was on for the culprits behind the assault, which was being described as the biggest-ever cyber ransom attack. State agencies and major companies around the world were left reeling by the attacks which blocked access to files and demanded ransom money, forcing shutdowns of computer systems.

“The recent attack is at an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits,” said Europol, Europe’s policing agency.

The attacks used ransomware, which locks users’ files unless they pay the attackers a designated sum in the virtual Bitcoin currency. Images appeared on victims’ screens demanding payment of $300 (275 euros) in Bitcoin, saying: “Ooops, your files have been encrypted!”

Payment is demanded within three days or the price is doubled, and if none is received within seven days the files will be deleted, according to the screen message. Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the Helsinki-based cyber security company F-Secure, told AFP that the attack was “the biggest ransomware outbreak in history”, saying that 130,000 systems in more than 100 countries had been affected.

He said Russia and India were hit particularly hard, largey because tech giant Microsoft’s older Windows XP operating software was still widely used there.

Microsoft said the situation was “painful” and that it was taking “all possible actions to protect our customers”.

It issued guidance for people to protect their systems, while taking the “highly unusual step” of providing a security update “for all customers to protect Windows platforms that are in custom support only”, including Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. US software firm Symantec said the majority of organisations affected were in Europe, and the attack was believed to be indiscriminate.

The ransomware spreads through corporate networks, “without user interaction, by exploiting a known vulnerability in Microsoft Windows,” it said.

The attacks apparently exploited a flaw exposed in documents leaked from the US National Security Agency (NSA).

Laurent Marechal, a cyber security expert at McAfee, said: “We still don’t know if this is worsening or easing. It is too early to tell. We are still in the analysis phase.” In the United States, package delivery group FedEx acknowledged it had been hit by malware and said it was “implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible.” French carmaker Renault was forced to stop production at sites in France, Slovenia and Romania, saying the measure was aimed at stopping the virus from spreading. Japanese carmaker Nissan’s plant in Sunderland, northeast England, was attacked but production shuts on Saturdays in any case.

Russia’s interior ministry said that some of its computers had been hit by a “virus attack” and that efforts were underway to destroy it. The country’s central bank said the Russian banking system was attacked, and the railway system also reported attempted breaches.

The central bank’s IT attack monitoring centre “detected mass distribution of harmful software” but no “instances of compromise”, it said. Germany’s Deutsche Bahn computers were also impacted, with the rail operator reporting that station display panels were affected. Some Italian universities were hit.

In a statement, computer security group Kaspersky Labs said it was “trying to determine whether it is possible to decrypt data locked in the attack - with the aim of developing a decryption tool as soon as possible.” On Saturday, a cyber security researcher told AFP he had accidentally discovered a “kill switch” that could prevent the spread of the ransomware.

The researcher, tweeting as @MalwareTechBlog, said registering a domain name used by the malware stops it from spreading, though it cannot help computers already affected.

A hacking group called Shadow Brokers released the malware in April claiming to have discovered the flaw from the NSA, Kaspersky said. Although Microsoft released a security patch for the flaw earlier this year, many systems have yet to be updated, researchers said.

“Unlike most other attacks, this malware is spreading primarily by direct infection from machine to machine on local networks, rather than purely by email,” said Lance Cottrell, chief scientist at the US technology group Ntrepid.

The unprecedented global cyberattack affected “more than 75,000 victims” in dozens of countries, French police said in a statement Saturday, the day after the ransomware hit Russia’s banks, British hospitals and European car factories among others.

“This is a provisional figure of the number of infected computers and could rise significantly over the coming days,” Valerie Maldonado, deputy head of the French police’s anti-Cybercrime Office told AFP.

Some said the attacks highlighted the need for agencies like the NSA to disclose security flaws so they can be patched.

G7 finance ministers meeting in Italy vowed to unite against cyber crime.

They said cyber incidents represent a growing threat to their economies and should be tackled as a priority. The danger will be discussed at the G7 leaders’ summit next month.

In Britain, the attack disrupted care at National Health Service facilities, forcing ambulances to divert and hospitals to postpone operations.

“There will be lessons to learn from what appears to be the biggest criminal cyber attack in history,” she said.

“But our immediate priority as a government is to disrupt the attack, restore affected services as soon as possible, and establish who was behind it so we can bring them to justice.” </s> SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Cybersecurity experts are pointing to circumstantial evidence that North Korea may be behind the global “ransomware” attack: the way the hackers took hostage computers and servers across the world was similar to previous cyberattacks attributed to North Korea.

Simon Choi, a director at South Korean anti-virus software company Hauri Inc. who has analyzed North Korean malware since 2008 and advises the government, said Tuesday that the North is no newcomer to the world of bitcoins. It has been mining the digital currency using malicious computer programs since as early as 2013, he said.

In the attack, hackers demand payment from victims in bitcoins to regain access to their encrypted computers. The malware has scrambled data at hospitals, factories, government agencies, banks and other businesses since Friday, but an expected second-wave outbreak largely failed to materialize after the weekend, in part because security researchers had already defanged it .

Choi is one of a number of researchers around the world who have suggested a possible link between the “ransomware” known as WannaCry and hackers linked to North Korea. Researchers at Symantec and Kaspersky Lab have found similarities between WannaCry and previous attacks blamed on North Korea.

While Choi’s speculation may deepen suspicions that the nuclear-armed state is responsible, the evidence is still far from conclusive. Authorities are working to catch the extortionists behind the global cyberattack, searching for digital clues and following the money.

“We are talking about a possibility, not that this was done by North Korea,” Choi said.

WannaCry paralyzed computers running mostly older versions of Microsoft Windows in some 150 countries. It encrypted users’ computer files and displayed a message demanding $300 to $600 worth of the digital currency bitcoin to release them; failure to pay would leave the data scrambled and likely beyond repair .

The hackers appeared to have taken control of computers and servers around the world by sending a type of malicious code known as a worm to file-sharing protocols. The worms quickly scanned computers with vulnerability, in this case the older versions of Microsoft Windows, and used those computers as hackers’ command and control centers.

This method, which allows quick and massive infections of computers with security weaknesses, has been found in previously known North Korean cyberattacks, including the Sony hack in 2014 blamed on North Korea.

“Since a July 2009 cyberattack by North Korea, they used the same method,” Choi said. “It’s not unique in North Korea but it’s also not a very common method.”

Choi also cited an accidental communication he had last year with a hacker traced to a North Korean internet address who admitted development of ransomware.

South Korea was mostly spared from the latest ransomware attack, partly because constant threats from the North have made the government and companies careful about always updating their software.

South Korea has been a frequent target of cyberattacks that it traced to its northern neighbor. Some high-profile attacks between 2009 and 2013 shut down government websites, banking systems and paralyzed broadcasters.

On Monday, the Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab said portions of the WannaCry program use the same code as malware previously distributed by the Lazarus Group, a hacker collective behind the 2014 Sony hack.

But it’s possible the code was simply copied from the Lazarus malware without any other direct connection. Kaspersky said “further research can be crucial to connecting the dots.”

Another security company, Symantec, has also found similarities between WannaCry and Lazarus tools, and said it’s “continuing to investigate for stronger connections.”

If North Korea, believed to be training cyber warriors at schools, is indeed responsible for the latest attack, Choi said the world should stop underestimating its capabilities and work together to think of a new way to respond to cyber threats, such as having China pull the plug on North Korea’s internet.

“We have underestimated North Korea so far that since North Korea is poor, it wouldn’t have any technologies. But North Korea has been preparing cyber skills for more than 10 years and its skill is significant. We should never underestimate it,” Choi said.

Researchers might find some additional clues in the bitcoin accounts accepting the ransom payments. There have been three accounts identified so far, and there’s no indication yet that the criminals have touched the funds.

Although bitcoin is anonymized, researchers can watch it flow from user to user. So investigators can follow the transactions until an anonymous account matches with a real person, said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer with the California security company McAfee.

But that technique is no sure bet. There are ways to convert bitcoins into cash on the sly through third parties. And even finding a real person might be no help if they’re in a jurisdiction that won’t cooperate.

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said U.S. investigators are collecting forensic information — such as internet addresses, samples of malware or information the culprits might have inadvertently left on computers — that could be matched with the handiwork of known hackers.

Investigators might also be able to extract some information about the attacker from a previously hidden internet address connected to WannaCry’s “kill switch.” That switch was essentially a beacon sending the message “hey, I’m infected” to the hidden address, Weaver said.

That means the very first attempts to reach that address, which might have been recorded by spy agencies such as the NSA or Russian intelligence, could lead to “patient zero” — the first computer infected with WannaCry. That, in turn, might further narrow the focus on possible suspects.

Forensics, though, will only get investigators so far. One challenge will be sharing intelligence in real time to move as quickly as the criminals — a tricky feat when some of the major nations involved, such as the U.S. and Russia, distrust each other.

Even if the perpetrators can be identified, bringing them to justice could be another matter. They might be hiding out in countries that wouldn’t be willing to extradite suspects for prosecution, said Robert Cattanach, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney and an expert on cybersecurity.

On the other hand, the WannaCry attack hit — and annoyed — many countries. Russia was among the hardest hit, and Britain among the most high-profile, and both have “some pretty good investigative capabilities,” Cattanach said.

Anick Jesdanun and Barbary Ortutay in New York, Lori Hinnant in Paris and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this story. </s> LONDON (AP) — A global “ransomware” cyberattack, unprecedented in scale, had technicians scrambling to restore Britain’s crippled hospital network Saturday and secure the computers that run factories, banks, government agencies and transport systems in many other nations.

The worldwide effort to extort cash from computer users is so unprecedented that Microsoft quickly changed its policy, making security fixes available for free for the older Windows systems still used by millions of individuals and smaller businesses.

A malware tracking map showed “WannaCry” infections popping up around the world. Britain canceled or delayed treatments for thousands of patients, even people with cancer. Train systems were hit in Germany and Russia, and phone companies in Madrid and Moscow. Renault’s futuristic assembly line in Slovenia, where rows of robots weld car bodies together, was stopped cold.

In Brazil, the social security system had to disconnect its computers and cancel public access. The state-owned oil company Petrobras and Brazil’s Foreign Ministry also disconnected computers as a precautionary measure, and court systems went down, too.

Britain’s home secretary said one in five of 248 National Health Service groups had been hit. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said all but six of the NHS trusts back to normal Saturday.

The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Center was “working round the clock” to restore vital health services, while urging people to update security software fixes, run anti-virus software and back up their data elsewhere.

Who perpetrated this wave of attacks remains unknown. Two security firms — Kaspersky Lab and Avast — said they identified the malicious software in more than 70 countries. Both said Russia was hit hardest.

These hackers “have caused enormous amounts of disruption– probably the biggest ransomware cyberattack in history,” said Graham Cluley, a veteran of the anti-virus industry in Oxford, England.

And all this may be just a taste of what’s coming, another cyber security expert warned.

Computer users worldwide — and everyone else who depends on them — should assume that the next big “ransomware” attack has already been launched, and just hasn’t manifested itself yet, Ori Eisen, who founded the Trusona cybersecurity firm in Scottsdale, Arizona, told The Associated Press.

The attack held hospitals and other entities hostage by freezing computers, encrypting data and demanding money through online bitcoin payments. But it appears to be “low-level” stuff, Eisen said Saturday, given the amount of ransom demanded — $300 at first, rising to $600 before it destroys files hours later.

He said the same thing could be done to crucial infrastructure, like nuclear power plants, dams or railway systems.

“This is child’s play, what happened. This is not the serious stuff yet. What if the same thing happened to 10 nuclear power plants, and they would shut down all the electricity to the grid? What if the same exact thing happened to a water dam or to a bridge?” he asked.

“Today, it happened to 10,000 computers,” Eisen said. “There’s no barrier to do it tomorrow to 100 million computers.”

This is already believed to be the biggest online extortion attack ever recorded, disrupting services in nations as diverse as the U.S., Ukraine, Brazil, Spain and India. Europol, the European Union’s police agency, said the onslaught was at “an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits.”

In Russia, government agencies insisted that all attacks had been resolved. Russian Interior Ministry, which runs the national police, said the problem had been “localized” with no information compromised. Russia’s health ministry said its attacks were “effectively repelled.”

The ransomware appeared to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that was purportedly identified by the U.S. National Security Agency for its own intelligence-gathering purposes. The NSA tools were stolen by hackers and dumped on the internet.

“There’s clearly some culpability on the part of the U.S. intelligence services. Because they could have done something ages ago to get this problem fixed, and they didn’t do it, Cluley said.

“I have some sympathy toward the intelligence services, because it’s very, very difficult these days, with encryption, to spy on people,” Cluley added. “But I don’t think that those concerns should hide the fact that ALL of us need to be protected … We’re living an online life, and we all deserve security there.”

It could have been much worse if not for a young cybersecurity researcher who helped to halt its spread by accidentally activating a so-called “kill switch” in the malicious software.

The 22-year-old Britain-based researcher, identified online only as MalwareTech, explained Saturday how he registered a garbled domain name he spotted in the code. His $11 purchase of the name on Friday activated the domain, which commanded the malware to stop spreading. It may have saved governments and companies millions of dollars and slowed the outbreak before U.S.-based computers were more widely infected.

Indeed, while FedEx Corp. reported that its Windows computers were “experiencing interference” from malware — it wouldn’t say if it had been hit by the ransomware — other impacts in the U.S. were not readily apparent on Saturday.

The kill switch couldn’t help those already infected, however. Short of paying, options for these individuals and companies are usually limited to recovering data files from a backup, if available, or living without them.

Security experts said it appeared to be caused by a self-replicating piece of software that enters companies when employees click on email attachments, then spreads quickly as employees share documents.

The security holes it exploits were disclosed weeks ago by TheShadowBrokers, a mysterious group that published what it said are hacking tools used by the NSA. Microsoft swiftly announced that it had already issued software “patches” to fix those holes, but many users haven’t yet installed updates or still use older versions of Windows.

Microsoft had made fixes for older systems, such as 2001’s Windows XP, available only to mostly larger organizations, including Britain’s National Health Service, that paid extra for extended technical support.

In light of Friday’s attacks, Microsoft announced that it’s making the fixes free to all.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> 'Biggest ransomware outbreak in history' hits nearly 100 countries with data held for ransom

Updated

Dozens of countries have been hit with a huge cyber extortion attack that locked computers and held users' files for ransom at a multitude of hospitals, companies and government agencies.

How did the attack occur? Attack appeared to be caused by a self-replicating piece of software that takes advantage of vulnerabilities in older versions of Microsoft Windows, security experts say

It spreads from computer to computer as it finds exposed targets.

Ransom demands start at $US300 and increase after two hours, a security researcher at Kaspersky Lab says

Security holes were disclosed several weeks ago by TheShadowBrokers, a mysterious group that has repeatedly published what it says are hacking tools used by the NSA

Shortly after that disclosure, Microsoft announced it had already issued software "patches" for those holes

But many companies and individuals have not installed the fixes yet or are using older versions of Windows that the company no longer supports and for which no patch was available

The most disruptive attacks were reported in Britain, where hospitals and clinics were forced to turn away patients after losing access to computers, but other countries — including Spain, Portugal and Russia — have also been targeted.

Cyber extortionists tricked victims into opening malicious malware attachments to spam emails that appeared to contain invoices, job offers, security warnings and other legitimate files.

The ransomware encrypted data on the computers, demanding payments of $300 to $600 to restore access. Security researchers said they observed some victims paying via the digital currency bitcoin, though they did not know what per cent had given in to the extortionists.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Helsinki-based cybersecurity company F-Secure, called it "the biggest ransomware outbreak in history".

The malicious software behind the onslaught appeared to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that was supposedly identified by the National Security Agency for its own intelligence-gathering purposes and was later leaked to the internet.

Researchers with security software maker Avast said they had observed 57,000 infections in 99 countries with Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan the top targets.

Chris Wysopal of the software security firm Veracode said criminal organisations were probably behind the attack, given how quickly the malware spread.

"For so many organisations in the same day to be hit, this is unprecedented," Mr Wysopal said.

But Alan Woodward, visiting professor of computing at the University of Surrey, said he did not believe it was a targeted attack.

"But will simply have been that the ransomware has sought out those organisations that are running susceptible devices," Mr Woodward said.

The US Department of Homeland Security said late on Friday (local time) that it was aware of reports of the ransomware, was sharing information with domestic and foreign partners and was ready to lend technical support.

The Group of Seven (G7) rich nations, which are holding a two-day meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Italy, released a draft statement committing to join forces to fight the rising threat of cyber attacks.

"We recognise that cyber incidents represent a growing threat for our economies and that appropriate economy-wide policy responses are needed," the draft statement said.

It called for common shared practices to spot quickly any vulnerabilities in the world's financial system and stressed the importance of effective measures to assess cyber security among individual financial firms and at sector level.

Patients turned away as hospitals hit with ransomware

Private security firms identified the ransomware as a new variant of "WannaCry" that had the ability to automatically spread across large networks by exploiting a known bug in Microsoft's Windows operating system.

The hackers, who have not come forward to claim responsibility or otherwise been identified, likely made it a "worm," or self-spreading malware, by exploiting a piece of NSA code known as "Eternal Blue" that was released last month by a group known as the Shadow Brokers, researchers with several private cyber security firms said.

Microsoft said it was pushing out automatic Windows updates to defend clients from WannaCry. It issued a patch on March 14.

The attack froze computers at hospitals across Britain, shutting down wards, closing emergency rooms and bringing medical treatments to a halt.

NHS Digital, which oversees hospital cybersecurity, said the attack was affecting organisations from across a range of sectors.

Many hospitals cancelled all routine procedures and warned patients not to come to hospital unless it was an emergency. Some chemotherapy patients were even sent home because their records could not be accessed.

Several facilities in Scotland also reported being hit. Doctors' practices and pharmacies reported similar problems.

Russia appeared to be the hardest hit, according to security experts, with the country's Interior Ministry confirming it was struck.

The interior ministry said on its website that around 1,000 computers had been infected but it had localised the virus.

In addition to Russia, the biggest targets appeared to be Ukraine and India, nations where it is common to find older, unpatched versions of Windows in use, according to security firm Kaspersky Lab's count.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said there had been no confirmed reports of an impact on Australian organisations at this stage.

He said the Federal Government was closely monitoring the situation.

"The Prime Minister's Cyber Security Special Adviser is working with the Australian Cyber Security Centre and health agencies in Australia to determine any impact to Australia," he said.

In Spain, some big firms took pre-emptive steps to thwart ransomware attacks following a warning from Spain's National Cryptology Centre of "a massive ransomware attack".

Iberdrola and Gas Natural, along with Vodafone's unit in Spain, asked staff to turn off computers or cut off internet access in case they had been compromised, representatives from the firms said.

British cyber centre says it is investigating attack

Leading international shipper FedEx Corp said it was one of the companies whose system was infected with the malware that security firms said was delivered via spam emails.

"Like many other companies, FedEx is experiencing interference with some of our Windows-based systems caused by malware," the company said in a statement.

Only a small number of US-headquartered organisations were infected because the hackers appear to have begun the campaign by targeting organisations in Europe, a research manager with security software maker Symantec said.

By the time they turned their attention to US organisations, spam filters had identified the new threat and flagged the ransomware-laden emails as malicious, Vikram Thakur said.

Telecommunications company Telefonica was among many targets in Spain, though it said the attack was limited to some computers on an internal network and had not affected clients or services.

Portugal Telecom and Telefonica Argentina both said they were also targeted.

Britain's National Cyber Security Centre, part of the GCHQ electronic intelligence agency, said it was working with police and the health system to investigate the attack.

British government officials and intelligence chiefs have repeatedly highlighted the threat to critical infrastructure and the economy from cyberattacks, with the National Cyber Security Centre reporting it had detected 188 "high-level" attacks in just three months.

AP/Reuters

Topics: internet-technology, healthcare-facilities, terrorism, united-kingdom, european-union

First posted </s> The Petya ransomware that plagued companies in Europe on Tuesday might have stemmed from corrupted updates of an accountancy software. Reports said that the Ukrainian tax-filing software, M.E.Doc, might have been the source of infection, but the company has denied these allegations.

According to BBC, a number of security experts claim to have logs revealing M.E.Doc as the source. British malware expert Marcus Hutchins, who had been credited with ending the recent WannaCry ransomware outbreak, said that the software’s automatic update system was compromised, and instead of running updates for the software, it was downloading and running malware.

Malware infiltrates networks via email attachments aiming to fool users into clicking on it by mistake. The Petya ransomware, once it has taken over a computer, will encrypt important documents and files and then demands a ransom in Bitcoins; in this case, $300. If the ransom is not paid, the user will risk losing all their files.

The cyberattack led to disruptions among infected companies in 64 countries, including banks in Ukraine, Russian oil giant Rosneft, and the British advertising company, WPP.

Danish shipping giant Maersk was also one of the companies that took a hit in yesterday’s cyberattack. According to BBC, the company was unable to process new orders and was expecting delays on consignments.

Even a Cadbury factory in Tasmania was affected and was forced to stop production as computer systems went down, according to John Short, the Australian Manufacturing and Workers Union state secretary.

While M.E.Doc denied claims that the ransomware sprung from its update, Microsoft published a blog post analyzing how the infection took hold of Windows machines. It pointed the blame at the accounting software.

“Active infections of the ransomware initially started from the legitimate M.E.Doc update process,” the blog entry reveals.

Meanwhile, according to The Guardian, the Petya ransomware looks like just another cybercriminal taking advantage of cyberweapons leaked online. Security experts deem the payment mechanism of the attack to be too amateurish since the ransom note includes the same Bitcoin payment address for every victim. The malware also asks the victim to communicate via a single email address, which was already suspended by the email provider. This means that there is no way to communicate with the attacker to request the decryption key.

According to security researcher Grugq, the recent cyberattack has only a superficial resemblance to Petya, which was a money-making criminal enterprise.

“This is definitely not designed to make money. This is designed to spread fast and cause damage, with a plausibly deniable cover of ‘ransomware,'” Grugq wrote.

The origin of the attack remains unknown, although according to Wired, Ukrainian cybersecurity firms and government agencies pin the attacks on political operatives seeking to disrupt Ukrainian institutions as it targets infrastructure, including an electricity supplier, the state telecom, the central bank, and an airport. </s> World reels from massive cyberattack that hit nearly 100 countries

HONG KONG (CNNMoney) — Organizations around the world were digging out this weekend from what experts are calling one of the biggest cyberattacks ever.

Hospitals, major companies and government offices were hit by a virus that seeks to seize control of computers until the victims pay a ransom.

Cybersecurity firm Avast said it had identified more than 75,000 ransomware attacks in 99 countries on Friday, making it one of the broadest and most damaging cyberattacks in history.

Avast said the majority of the attacks targeted Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan. But U.K. hospitals, Chinese universities and global firms like Fedex also reported they had come under assault.

Security experts said the spread of the ransomware had been inadvertently stopped late Friday. The ransomware was designed to repeatedly contact an unregistered domain in its code. A 22-year-old security researcher in the U.K, who goes by MalwareTech, registered that domain to analyze the attack, but it turned out the ransomware needed it to remain unregistered to keep spreading.

“Thus by registering it we inadvertently stopped any subsequent infections,” he told CNNTech.

However, a hacker could change the code to remove the domain and try the ransomware attack again.

It remained unclear how many organizations had already lost control of their data to the malicious software — and researchers warned that copycat attacks could follow.

Europol said Saturday that the attack was of an “unprecedented level and requires international investigation.” And the U.K. government called an emergency meeting over the crisis.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, at a meeting of world leaders in Italy, said the attack was a reminder of the importance of cybersecurity. “It’s a big priority of mine that we protect the financial infrastructure,” he said.

The ransomware, called WannaCry, locks down all the files on an infected computer and asks the computer’s administrator to pay in order to regain control of them. The exploit was leaked last month as part of a trove of NSA spy tools.

The ransomware is spread by taking advantage of a Windows vulnerability that Microsoft released a security patch for in March. But computers and networks that hadn’t updated their systems were still at risk.

In the wake of the attack, Microsoft said it had taken the “highly unusual step” of releasing a patch for computers running older operating systems including Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2003.

But the patches won’t do any good for machines that have already been hit.

“Affected machines have six hours to pay up and every few hours the ransom goes up,” said Kurt Baumgartner, the principal security researcher at security firm Kaspersky Lab. “Most folks that have paid up appear to have paid the initial $300 in the first few hours.”

On Saturday, experts said it appeared that the ransomware had made just over $20,000, although they expected that number to pop when people went back into the office Monday.

WannaCry has already caused massive disruption around the globe.

Sixteen National Health Service organizations in the UK were hit, and some of those hospitals canceled outpatient appointments and told people to avoid emergency departments if possible. The NHS said in a statement on Saturday that there was no evidence that patient information had been compromised.

In China, the internet security company Qihoo360 issued a “red alert” saying that a large number of colleges and students in the country had been affected by the ransomware, which is also referred to as WannaCrypt. State media reported that digital payment systems at PetroChina gas stations were offline, forcing customers to pay cash.

Major global companies said they also came under attack.

Fedex said Friday it was “experiencing interference with some of our Windows-based systems caused by malware” and was trying to fix the problems as quickly as possible. Two big telecom companies, Telefónica of Spain and Megafon of Russia, were also hit.

“This is turning into the biggest cybersecurity incident I’ve ever seen,” U.K.-based security architect Kevin Beaumont said.

Russia’s Interior Ministry released a statement Friday acknowledging a ransomware attack on its computers, adding that less than 1% of computers were affected, and that the virus was now “localized” and being destroyed.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in a statement late Friday, encouraged people to update their operating systems. “We are actively sharing information related to this event and stand ready to lend technical support and assistance as needed to our partners, both in the United States and internationally,” the department said.

According to Matthew Hickey, founder of the security firm Hacker House, the attack is not surprising, and it shows many organizations do not apply updates in a timely fashion.

When CNNTech first reported the Microsoft vulnerabilities leaked in April, Hickey said they were the “most damaging” he’d seen in several years, and warned that businesses would be most at risk.

Consumers who have up-to-date software are protected from this ransomware. Here’s how to turn automatic updates on.

It’s not the first time hackers have used the leaked NSA tools to infect computers. Soon after the leak, hackers infected thousands of vulnerable machines with a backdoor called DOUBLEPULSAR.

— Donna Borak, Samuel Burke, Paul K. Murphy, Mariano Castillo, Jessica King, Yuli Yang, Steven Jiang, Clare Sebastian and Livvy Doherty contributed to this report.
A ransomware cyberattack continues to infect computers of private and public organisations around the world, and demand payment in bitcoin. The method used by the program, EternalBlue, was originally developed by the National Security Agency to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows, and was leaked by The Shadow Brokers in April.