British hospitals, Spanish firms among targets of global ‘ransomware’ attack

“The investigation is at an early stage, but we believe the malware variant is Wanna Decryptor”, the NHS says, referring to software that is being blamed for a number of ransom attacks in Europe Friday.

British health minister Jeremy Hunt said on Monday it was “encouraging” that a predicted second spike of cyber attacks had not yet occurred, but the ransomware attack was a warning to public and private organisations.

As almost 45 NHS organisations from London to Scotland were hit in the “ransomware” attack on Friday, patients of the state-funded countrywide service faced chaos as appointments and surgeries had to be cancelled.

Stevenage’s Lister Hospital is still experiencing “major computer problems” following Friday’s cyber attack in which a virus was introduced onto IT systems at NHS trusts, businesses and other organisations across the United Kingdom and globally.

The health service faces a weekend of chaos after the unprecedented attack forced hospitals to cancel and delay treatment for patients.

Scottish health secretary Shona Robison has confirmed that there has been no further reported problems with the NHS systems following a global cyber attack.

The attacks came overnight in the form of ransomware, a technique used by hackers that locks users’ files unless they pay the attackers a designated sum in the virtual currency Bitcoin.

Bart’s Health, which runs several London hospitals, said it had activated its major incident plan, cancelling routine appointments and diverting ambulances to neighbouring hospitals. The NSA and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Andrea Zapparoli Manzoni, a senior manager in the Information Risk Management division of Kpmg Advisory in Italy, said: “The ransomware attack is happening in a haphazard fashion and is hitting every country in the world, including Italy”.

Six NHS trusts are yet to return to normal around 24 hours after an global cyber attack struck computer systems across the globe. It spreads from computer for computer as it finds exposed targets, without the user having to open an e-mail attachment or click a link as is commonplace in most attacks.

Labour’s shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, in a letter to Mr Hunt, said concerns were repeatedly flagged about outdated computer systems.

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.

According to security experts, it exploited a vulnerability that was discovered and developed by the US’s National Security Agency. The exploit was leaked last month as part of a trove of NSA spy tools.

Theresa May said the Government is not aware of any evidence that patient records have been compromised in the massive cyber attack on the NHS.

In Spain, the attacks did not disrupt the provision of services or networks operations of the victims, the government said in a statement. “And some of them may not be well prepared for such attacks”, Camacho said.

Worldwide shipper FedEx Corp said some of its Windows computers were also infected.

A security update was released by Microsoft in March to protect against the virus.

Micrsoft’s top lawyer has criticized USA intelligence for “stockpiling” software code that can aid hackers.

“Hackers will realise that hospitals can be hacked relatively easily, and of course that hospitals have very sensitive data and we need that to manage our patients and it’s time-critical data”.

England’s NHS says at least 16 of its organizations were hit by the ransomware. Backing up or copying data to a drive that can be unplugged from the network solves that problem, he said. That number is likely to go up, Gazeley said.