A massive ransomware campaign appears to have infected a number of organizations around the world. Screenshots of a well-known program that locks computers and demands $300 (£230) in Bitcoin have been shared online by parties claiming to be affected. There have been reports of infections in the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Taiwan and others. Security researchers are linking the incidents together. One cyber-security researcher tweeted that he had
detected many thousands of cases of the ransomware, known as WannaCry and variants of that name. “This is huge,” said Jakub Kroustek at Avast. Another, at cyber-security firm Kaspersky, said that the ransomware had been spotted cropping up in 74 countries and that the number was still growing. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) was also hit by a ransomware outbreak on the same day and screenshots of the WannaCry program were shared by NHS staff. FULL REPORT
