America, Russia, Britain, India and many more countries are facing a ransomware attack. Hackers have targeted millions of mobile phones and computers using this ransomware. Britain National Health Service is badly affected by this attack.
What is a Ransomware?
A ransomware is a software with which virus get entered into the computer and makes all the data inaccessible to the user until a ransom is paid to the hacker. The money is usually paid through Bitcoins, after which data get unlocked and accessible.
The hackers are asking for $300 for ransom amount through Bitcoin to unlock the data. There is warning shown on the affected computers that “the amount will be doubled if not paid within the given date”. This malware is spreading mostly through emails.
Reason for the Cyber Attack?
Specialists are saying that the attack was done with the help of leaked Cyber Weapons of National Security Agency (NSA) of America. Sweden, Britain, and France were the first to face the attack, said by American media.
Security software organization, Avast said that “This virus got spread within a few hours and more than 75000 infected computers found worldwide. Meanwhile, our malware tracker found 1,00,000 infected computers in 24 hours“.
Security researchers of Kaspersky Lab found more than 45,000 attacks in Britain, Russia, Ukrain, India, China, Italy and Egypt.
Edward Snowden blamed NSA
Edward Snowden of Courage foundations and former CIA employee said that NSA is responsible for this massive global attack. Snowden said,
Inspite of being warned, NSA made these insidious tools which could target softwares, for which we are suffering now.
He also said, “The attack on hospitals could have been prevented if NSA would have disclosed about this tool”. Some cyber specialists have said that “America mostly uses these cyber resources to attack rather than for security“.
Stealing of the weapon
On the 14th of April 2017, a hacker group named Shadow Brokers provided this tool openly on the internet. This is the same group who claimed to steal these cyber weapons from NSA last year.
Update: This attack has now been halted accidentally.
Read, how a security blogger accidentally stopped the world’s biggest cyber attack
Indian government should take steps to prevent this
In my homestate, a government hospital desktops were hacked
so miserable