Global cyber attack hits 74 countries

Up to 74 countries have now been affected by a huge global cyber attack which hit the UK earlier today.

At least 57,000 people have reported falling victim to the hack.

NHS in England was affected after hackers took control of computers and cut off phone lines in hospitals on International Nurses Day.

And computers at Russia’s Interior Ministry have been infected with the malware, the ministry revealed.

Other countries affected include the US, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Mexico.

The virus is thought to be spreading at a rate of five million emails per hour.

In Russia’s Interior Ministry, more than 1,000 Windows-operated PCs have been affected.

Spokeswoman Irina Volk said that the screens affected account for less than one percent of the total number of such computers in the ministry.

Speaking this afternoon, Prime Minister Theresa May said that the cyber strike, which hit dozens of British hospitals, is part of a wider ‘international attack’.

And this afternoon, the NHS declared a ‘major incident’ after the attacks, which prompted some hospitals to divert ambulances and scrap operations.

Forcepoint Security Labs said that ‘a major malicious email campaign’ consisting of millions of emails per hour is what is spreading the new ransomware.

The group said in a statement that the attack had ‘global scope’.

In Spain, employees at telecom giant Telefonica were told to shut down their workstations immediately through megaphone announcements as the attack spread.

Security experts have also expressed alarm over the fast-moving wave of cyber attacks around the world.

The attacks came in the form of ransomware, a technique used by hackers that locks a user’s files unless they pay the attackers in bitcoin.

The malware’s name is WCry, but analysts were also using variants such as WannaCry, WanaCrypt0r, WannaCrypt, or Wana Decrypt0r.

Microsoft released a security patch earlier this year for the flaw, but many systems have yet to be updated, researchers said.

Researcher Costin Raiu of the Russian-based security firm Kaspersky said:’So far, we have recorded more than 45,000 attacks of the #WannaCry ransomware in 74 countries around the world. Number still growing fast.’