Ransomware cyber-attack threat escalating - Europol

Friday's cyber-attack has affected more than 200,000 victims in 150 countries, Europol chief Rob Wainwright says.

 

He told the BBC the act was "unprecedented in its scale" and warned more people could find themselves affected on Monday morning. The virus took control of users' files, demanding payments; Russia and the UK were among the worst-hit countries. Experts say another attack could be imminent and have warned people to ensure their security is up to date. Mr Wainwright said that the ransomware - software that blocks access to data until a ransom is paid - was combined with a worm application - a program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. This, he said, was allowing the "infection of one computer to quickly spread across the networks". He added: "That's why we're seeing these numbers increasing all the time."

'Patch before Monday'

Although a temporary fix earlier slowed the infection rate, the attackers had now released a new version of the ransomware, he said. Companies need to make sure they have updated their systems and "patched where they should" before staff arrived for work on Monday morning, the EU law enforcement agency head said. In England, 48 National Health Service (NHS) trusts reported problems at hospitals, GP surgeries or pharmacies, and 13 NHS organisations in Scotland were also affected.