Largest online extortion to date

THE GLOBAL “ransomware” cyberattack hit computers at 600 locations in Japan, but appeared to cause no major problems as Japanese started their workday yesterday, even as the attack caused chaos elsewhere.

Nissan confirmed some units had been targeted, but there had been no major impact on its business.

Hitachi spokesperson Yuko Tainiuchi said e-mails were slow or undelivered, and files could not be opened.

The company said it believed that the problems were related to the ransomware attack, although no ransom appeared to have been demanded so far.

Affected

The Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Co-ordination Centre, a non-profit providing support for computer attacks, said 2 000 computers at 600 locations in Japan were affected, citing an affiliate foreign security organisation that it cannot identify.

At least one hospital was affected. The city of Osaka said its home page went blank, although e-mail and other problems had not been detected.

“We cannot confirm why this happened, and we are in the middle of investigating,” said Hajime Nishikawa of the city hall’s IT division.

The attack, known as “WannaCry,” paralysed computers that run Britain’s hospital network, Germany’s national railway and other companies and government agencies worldwide in what may be the largest online ex-