Ransomware attacks leads to closure of many ATM’s in Vizag

The latest Ransomware attacks hitting several countries included India too, where many companies and about 18 computers of AP police have been affected. The largest world-wide cyber attack which demands ransom to unlock our own device was first detected on Friday and later spread across the globe on Saturday. However the department’s data and computer network remained intact as they work on Linux and Ubuntu operating systems. Sources have reported that computers are being locked due to these ransomware attacks in Gujarat, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Bengaluru as well.

Systems using Microsoft’s operating system are more prone to Ransomware attacks. This means that the ATM’s in India are vulnerable to these attacks as most of them run on outdated operating systems.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the agency coordinating efforts on cyber security issues, is circulating Microsoft’s security patches in India. So the majority of ATM’s in the city which have XP operating system are shut down. While the state organizations managing government websites and building supercomputers have installed those security patches, they are now working on remote update of the patches. This means that the patches can either be directly downloaded or pushed remotely to the thousands of ATM’s. If that works out, updates will get completed over the next couple of days or else will require a physical visit to the banks, which may take time. These patches are for temporary use and banks are using these shortcuts as getting a new software involves high licensing cost.

India has more Internet connections and the scale of Ransomware attacks is likely to increase two-three times in the coming days so caution is advised before accepting any random mail from an unknown user. We also recommend you to backup important files in a separate system which is not connected to the Internet and also update your software from time to time.

Image Credits: timesofoman.com