Global manhunt for online criminals

The true scale of last week’s cyber attack which impacted upon health services across the UK is now becoming clear. British security chiefs have said the attempt to cripple IT systems was the biggest of its kind ever recorded.

More than 200,000 victims in 150 countries have been registered, with Europol confirming it as “the largest ransomware attack observed in history”. The pace of the spread of the threat was alarming indeed and questions will inevitably be asked as to how prepared the authorities were to deal with such a rapidly developing situation.

Yesterday, Theresa May was forced to deny that warning signs were ignored just hours before the cyber attack struck.

However, the truth is that there is frighteningly little organisations such as health boards can realistically do to protect themselves from these emerging threats.

Neil Walsh, the UN’s head of global cyber-crime, last night said the UN has been warning for a number of years that ransomware is one of the biggest threats to businesses.

Referring to the attack as a “wake-up call”, he nevertheless believes those responsible will be found. It may well be that the hackers themselves have been surprised by the success of their attack.

Many leading nations — the UK, Russia, China and the US among them — were impacted.

Retribution will likely be severe.