WannaCry ransomeware: Ravi Shankar Prasad says attack limited to few places in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala

Earlier today, news agency ANI reported that computers at the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company are suspected to have fallen prey to the ransomeware attack. Monday also saw India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) lay down steps for users and organisations on safeguarding their computers from the attack.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in a statement said it has activated a “preparedness and response mechanism” by instructing CERT-IN to gather information on this attack.

“MeitY has initiated contact with relevant stakeholders in public and private sector to ‘patch’ their systems as prescribed in the advisory issued by CERT-IN. MeitY has also requested Microsoft India to inform all their partners and customers to apply relevant patches,” the ministry said in a statement, according to IANS.

The ransomware, which locks crucial files and data unless the user pays a ransom of $300 Bitcoin, has affected thousands of computers across the world, including India.

In India, the issue is made worse because many computers might still be on Windows XP, for which Microsoft had not issued security updates for sometime. However, in light of the attack, Microsoft issued a security patch to Windows XP as well, in order to fix the security vulnerability related to the cyber-attack.