New Delhi May 14 (IANS) The government on Sunday said it has activated a preparedness and response mechanism to prevent any major cyber attack from a new ransomware -- Wannacry -- which has infected computer systems around the world.
According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) it has activated a preparedness and response mechanism by instructing CERT-IN (Computer Emergency Response Team) to gather all the information of the reported ransomware.
Just a few days ago a global cyber attack was launched using the WannaCry ransomware. The malicious software infects a computer and restricts users access to it until a ransom is paid to unlock it.
On May 13 CERT-IN had issued an advisory for both reactive and preventive actions to deal with the ransomware.
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.
In India no reports have been formally received so far regarding this ransomware attack. However it is understood that a few systems of the police department in Andhra Pradesh were impacted. MeitY has informed AP government to follow the CERT-In advisory.
As per the Cyber Swachhta Kendra (Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre) ransomware spreads by using a vulnerability in implementations of Server Message Block (SMB) in Windows systems.
--IANS
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Government activates mechanism to prevent cyber attack
