‘Ransomware’ arrives in Asia but spread of computer virus slowing
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THE worldwide “ransomware” cyber attack spread to thousands more computers yesterday as people across Asia logged in at work, disrupting businesses, schools, hospitals and daily life. But no new large-scale outbreaks were reported, and British officials said a feared second wave of infections had not materialized.
The new infections were largely in Asia, which had been closed for business when the malware first struck. In Britain, where the health service was among the first high-profile targets, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said “we have not seen a second wave of attacks.”
He said “the level of criminal activity is at the lower end of the range that we had anticipated.”
The malware, known as “WannaCry,” paralyzed computers running factories, banks, government agencies and transport systems, hitting 200,000 victims in more than 150 countries. Among those hit were Russia’s Interior Ministry and companies including Spain’s Telefonica and FedEx Corp in the US.
Though the spread of the ransomware slowed yesterday, many companies and government agencies were still struggling to recover from the first attack.
Carmaker Renault said one of its French plants, which employs 3,500 people, wasn’t reopening yesterday as a “preventative step.”
Britain’s National Health Service said about a fifth of NHS trusts — the regional bodies that run hospitals and clinics — were hit by the attack on Friday, leading to thousands of canceled appointments and operations. Seven of the 47 affected trusts were still having IT problems yesterday.
The British government denied allegations that lax cyber security in the financially stretched, state-funded health service had helped the attack spread.
Prime Minister Theresa May said “warnings were given to hospital trusts” about the Microsoft vulnerability exploited by the attackers.
NHS Digital, which oversees UK hospital cyber security, said it sent alerts about the problem — and a patch to fix it — to health service staff and IT professionals last month.
Tim Stevens, a lecturer in global security at King’s College London, said the incident should be a wake-up call to both the public and private sectors to incorporate security into computer systems from the ground up, rather than as an afterthought.
“This thing cannot be brushed under the carpet,” he said. “It is so visible and so global. There is going to have to be change at levels where change can be made.”
In Asia, where Friday’s attack occurred after business hours, thousands of new cases were reported yesterday as people returned to work.
The Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center, a nonprofit group, said 2,000 computers at 600 locations in Japan were affected. Companies including Hitachi and Nissan reported problems but said they had not seriously affected their operations.
Chinese media said 29,372 institutions had been infected along with hundreds of thousands of devices. Universities and other educational institutions in China were among the hardest hit, possibly because schools tend to have old computers and be slow to update operating systems and security, said Fang Xingdong, founder of ChinaLabs, an internet strategy think tank.
On social media, students complained about not being able to access their work, and people in various cities said they hadn’t been able to take their driving tests over the weekend because some local traffic police systems were down.
Railway stations, mail delivery, gas stations, hospitals, office buildings, shopping malls and government services also were affected, Xinhua news agency said, citing the Threat Intelligence Center of Qihoo 360, an Internet security services company.
Experts urged organizations and companies to immediately update older Microsoft operating systems with a patch released by the company.
So far, not many people have paid the ransom demanded by the malware, Europol spokesman Jan Op Gen Oorth said.
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