WannaCry ransomware: Govt activates mechanism to prevent cyber attacks; CERT-IN to collect info

New Delhi: 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 Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) 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 Andhra Pradesh 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.