Low impact, no one's WannaCry here

Bengaluru/New Delhi: The Centre said on Monday that there has been no report of a major breach in security from the Ransomware 'WannaCry' except for isolated incidents in Kerala in Wayanad district and Ranni in Pathanamthitta on Monday where Windows 7 operating system was in use.

The hackers had demanded $300 to provide the password to decrypt the files.  Even as there were reports that 'WannaCry' that had spread globally, creating havoc in different countries, attacking thousands of systems was slowing down, experts were on high alert fearing a second round of Ransomware cyber attacks.

The malicious software, which blocks the systems until a demanded sum of amount is paid, has been giving sleepless nights to cyber security experts in both government and private sector companies.

Indian companies are also likely to face major cyber risk if the systems are not maintained, updated or patched up properly. According to cyber security experts the outdated ATMs and payment gateways are more vulnerable to such types of attacks.

 “I’m sure that there are thousands of outdated ATMs in India, which can be a potential target for this kind of attack,” said Michael Joseph, Regional Director System Engineering, India & SAARC, Fortinet, a cyber security company.

Various reports also stated on Monday that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has instructed banks not to run ATMs until the software is updated. The move is a precautionary measure to prevent threats from disrupting the systems, while keeping the data protected.

Mr. Joseph said that the operating systems in many government organizations run on outdated software, making them more susceptible to ransomware attacks.     

Even after paying the sum of amount demanded by cyber criminals, there’s no guarantee that the data will be recovered. It is advisable for companies not to pay the amount demanded.  “Once, thousands of computers were hacked in a company and they decided not to pay the ransomware amount and let go of the data. Over 60 per cent of people have lost their data even after paying the amount,” said. Mr. Joseph.

Additionally, the attacks like WannaCry can be more successful against organizations with weaker security, according to Subhendu Sahu, Acting Country Manager for India, FireEye. “Given the rapid, prolific distribution of this ransomware, we consider this activity poses high risks that all organizations using potentially vulnerable Windows machines should address. And we can certainly expect follow on attacks.

Organizations seeking to take risk management steps related to this campaign should install the latest Windows patches. They should also use the indicators of compromise which are associated with this activity. FireEye has taken steps to help secure its customers,” he added.

The Indian ecommerce companies have also been increasingly taking all the precautionary measures to prevent the attacks. Piyush Goel, Vice President of engineering at TravelTriagle, said, “Every online transaction coming from Windows XP is carefully monitored. We are keeping a close watch on our traffic for any suspicious activity.”