Global monitoring sites announced that 99 countries around the world were affected by the “ransom” virus, which is called “wannacry”, as it encrypts files on the computer and prevents parties from accessing them before paying a financial ransom. Russia was one of the countries most affected by the attack, while England was forced to cancel a number of surgeries after hospitals were subjected to a major attack, and in Spain 70% of the telecommunications company’s devices were infected, and the “Securist” website of the “Kaspersky” company, which specializes in protection, announced. 50,000 computers have been damaged in the world, and the damage is expected to double in the coming days, and it will reach Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.
The website of the Dutch parliament was also subjected to an electronic attack, according to Dutch press reports. Dutch news agency ANB said parliament had taken "appropriate measures" in response to the infiltration.
Two government-funded websites used by Dutch voters to help them decide which party to vote for in the March 15 election were also attacked on election day.
Focus-IT, a Dutch internet security firm, examined the attacks and said it believed they were carried out by groups of Turkish hackers.
Meanwhile, the former contractor of the US National Security Agency, Edward Snowden, blamed the agency for the electronic attacks that swept a number of countries around the world, on Friday, by means of a malicious information program.
Information security experts said that among the affected countries are Britain, Russia, Ukraine, India, China, Italy, Spain, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Mexico and Egypt.
And the Russian Ministry of the Interior announced last Friday evening that its computers had been subjected to a “virus attack.” British Prime Minister Theresa May said last Friday evening that cyber attacks targeted the Public Health Service (NHS) and dozens of hospitals in Britain.
The European police service (Europol) considered that the level of international cyberattack affecting a number of countries and organizations is "unprecedented".
"The latest attack is of an unprecedented scale and will require a complex international investigation to find out who is responsible," Europol said in a statement. Russia said that it had located the dangerous virus that targeted computers in dozens of countries, and said that work is underway to eradicate it, according to the Russian Interfax agency.
On the other hand, the Electronic Security Center announced in a statement broadcast on its Twitter account that the center had monitored global ransomware-type attacks, as a result of which several parties outside the Kingdom were infected during the past 24 hours, which are attacks that prevent access to device files, often through Encrypting these files and then decrypting them in the event of payment to the attacker, and the center is now verifying the attacks by evaluating the threat to the Kingdom and the vital entities that might have weaknesses in their networks that could be exploited in this attack, and the center had sent a warning to the government and vital entities participating with it in the program to share information about This vulnerability is dated 4/18/2017. A direct warning was also sent to the parties that the center believes have weaknesses in their electronic systems and are vulnerable to this infection.
The statement added that the global attack decreased yesterday (Saturday), and the center is still following the general situation in the Kingdom of government and vital agencies. The center directed its advice to the authorities to scan the networks with an updated anti-virus to ensure that they are free of the software behind the attack, even if it is not activated.
It also recommends updating systems to close vulnerabilities, keeping backups separate from the network, and testing them periodically.
Ibrahim Aqili (Jeddah) @iageely
