China issues warning for new ransomware virus

BEIJING: China has urged Windows users to protect themselves against a new ransomware virus similar to the WannaCry bug that wreaked havoc worldwide last week.

“UIWIX” encrypts and renames files through a bug in the Windows operating system, China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre (CVERC) warned in a public announcement on Wednesday, telling users to install the latest Microsoft update.

The warning comes on the heels of the “WannaCry” cyberattack, which has hit hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.

While no UIWIX infections have yet been detected in China, the virus has spread in other countries and prompted a security alert last week from the Danish cybersecurity company Heimdal Security.

“UIWIX ransomware is picking up where the first WannaCry wave left off, without a kill switch domain and the same self-replicating abilities that enable it to spread fast,” the firm said in a statement.

Heimdal cautioned that the new bug could be more powerful than WannaCry due to the absence of a kill switch domain that could contain the virus’s distribution.

But other analysts have noted that UIWIX appears to be spreading at a much slower pace.

Global cybersecurity firm Proofpoint warned on Wednesday about another large-scale, stealthy cyberattack linked to WannaCry called Adylkuzz.

On Sunday, Qihoo 360, one of China’s leading suppliers of antivirus software, said more than 29,000 institutions ranging from government offices to ATMs and hospitals had been “infected” by WannaCry, singling out universities as particularly hard-hit.

But the Education Ministry’s China Education and Research Network denied that there had been widespread damage to computer systems.

Sarah Larson, a politics and cybersecurity researcher at the University of New South Wales, said that China’s preemptive alert about UIWIX may indicate that WannaCry sent the government “reeling.”