Andhra police fall prey to global cyber attack
WANNACRY BUG Govt’s cyber security arm issues do’s and don’ts to RBI, stock markets and National Payments Corporation of India
India was among several nations, including Russia and Britain, that have been affected by a rogue cyber attack that infected computers.
In India, a section of computers of Andhra Pradesh’s police departments were affected during the attack.
Computers in 18 police units in Chittoor, Krishna, Guntur, Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam districts were affected, news agency PTI reported.
The cyber attack spread panic globally after infecting computers of hospitals, railways, police and private companies, forcing the seven powerful countries (G7) to firm up action against such malicious attempts.
Government’s cyber security arm Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has alerted vital institutions including RBI, stock markets and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) against the latest cyber attack that has infected thousands of systems globally.
It has issued a list of do’s and don’ts to these agencies and advised installation of relevant “patches” to protect against any data breaches.
According to official sources, the government has made necessary arrangements to handle the situation. “No major incident of cyber attack has been brought to the notice of Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) yet,” they added.
Operations of global corporations such as Renault, FedEx, Telefonica and Portugal Telecom were also hit by ‘WannaCry’.
In Britain, state-run National Health Service’s hospitals and clinics were hit by the computer bug, while computers of Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank were affected. Agency reports suggest a new variant of ‘WannaCry’ ransomware hit large networks by exploiting a known bug in Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
Cyber extortionists forced victims into opening malicious attachments, infected the computers and then demanded $300 to $600 to restore the systems.
Some victims were asked to pay through the digital currency bitcoin. Researchers with security software maker Avast said they had observed 57,000 infections in 99 countries, with Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan the top targets, according to Reuters.
A 20-year-old Muslim woman is battling for her life after her brother shot her on Friday in the presence of their father because of her affair with a Hindu man, in Sambhal’s Kamalpur Kafirpur village about 100 km from Meerut.
The two men were sent to jail on Saturday on an attempt to murder case based on the complaint of the village watchman.
“The girl’s father and brother have been taken into custody for interrogation,” deputy inspector general of police (DIG) of Moradabad range Omkar Singh told HT.
The girl’s brother saw her talking to a friend of hers and in fit of rage he allegedly shot her. The accused then made an attempt to dodge the police by concocting a story of robbery and said the miscreants had injured the girl. But their lie was exposed when circle officer Brahmpal Singh Baliyan reached the hospital where the injured girl was admitted .
Parts of UP have been on the edge recently over inter-faith marriage. In Nandrauli village of Sambhal district, Yadavs of the area vandalised over six Muslim households following the elopement of a girl from their community with a Muslim youth earlier this week. In Bulandshahr, a middle-aged Muslim man was beaten to death after a distant relative of his eloped with a Hindu woman. S RAJU