14-May-2017: Govt alerts RBI, NPCI, NIC, UIDAI against ransomware
The IT Ministry has reached out to key stakeholders like RBI, National Payments Corporation of India, NIC and UIDAI (Aadhaar) to advise them to protect their systems against ‘WannaCry’ ransomware to ensure that the digital payments ecosystem in the country is protected. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has also instructed cyber security unit CERT-In to gather information of ‘WannaCry’ ransomware that has wreaked havoc across sectors like healthcare and telecommunications in more than 100 countries.
The ransomware has hit systems in over 100 countries, including Russia and the U.K., in one of the most widespread cyber-attacks in history. It infected computers running on older versions of Microsoft operating systems like XP, locking access to files on the computer. The cyber criminals have demanded a fee of about $300 in crypto-currencies like Bitcoin for unlocking the device.