Worldwide hunt to find culprits of global cyber attack

Zimbabwe is one of the countries targeted by the massive cyber-attack called WannaCry ransomware which has hit computers in 104 countries including the Russian Federation, the UK, Ukraine and China.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has issued a statement on their website, offering advice to both organisations and private individuals on how to protect themselves from further attacks.

When a system is infected, a pop-up window appears with instructions on how to pay a ransom amount of 300 U.S. dollars and the payment is only accepted in bitcoin.

Given the attack’s widespread nature, even such a small sum would stack up quickly, though few victims seem to be paying up so far.

All sectors of the economy were vulnerable and organizations could take lessons from the banking industry, which appeared to have largely escaped the global attack.

“The National Cyber Security Centre is working with all organizations here in the United Kingdom that have been affected”.

Microsoft released security updates last month to address the vulnerability, with another patch released on Friday.

The countries, including India, were hit by what is believed to be the biggest-ever recorded cyberattack on Friday with investigators looking for those behind the hack that affected systems at banks, hospitals and government agencies globally, media reports said.

Who is to blame for the massive ransomware attack?

The virus exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows XP software, first identified by the US National Security Agency. They were installing software to fix the problems.

Security experts have warned that another attack is imminent, most likely on Monday, and could be unstoppable.

“It seems that a lot of internet security guys over the weekend did their homework and ran the security software updates”. The NHS has said hospitals have had to cancel some outpatient appointments because of the attack.

Governments should heed the attack as “a wake-up call”, the tech exec wrote – adding they must “consider the damage to civilians that comes from hoarding these vulnerabilities and the use of these exploits”.

“The use of cyberattacks for criminal purposes is an increasing threat which requires a coordinated and global response from the EU and its member states”, Margaritis Schinas, a spokesman for the European Commission, said on Monday. As of Saturday afternoon, the hackers appeared to have received less than $30,000, according to security researchers. Because numerous computers impacted run older Windows systems like XP, Microsoft issued a rare patch for XP, which it had stopped updating more than three years ago.