The unprecedented global cyberattack affected "more than 75,000 victims" in dozens of countries, French police said in a statement Saturday, the day after the ransomware hit Russia's banks, British hospitals and European car factories among others. "This is a provisional figure of the number of infected computers and could rise significantly over the coming days," Valerie Maldonado, deputy head of the French police's anti-Cybercrime Office told AFP.
Microsoft has taken the unusual step of re-releasing security updates for some older versions of its Windows platforms to counter a massive global wave of cyber ransomware attacks. In a blog post, the US tech giant recalled that it had published an update in March to address the weakness exploited in Friday's attacks, a security flaw exposed in documents leaked from the US National Security Agency.
The attacks struck targets in dozens of countries, ranging from British hospitals to Russian banks. "Those who have Windows Update enabled are protected against attacks on this vulnerability," the company said in the post published on its website. "For those organisations who have not yet applied the security update, we suggest you immediately deploy Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010."
The so-called "Wannacry" virus notably attacks Windows XP, which in principle has not been supported by Microsoft since 2014. "Some of our customers are running versions of Windows that no longer receive mainstream support. That means those customers will not have received the above mentioned security update released in March," it said. "Given the potential impact to customers and their businesses, we made the decision to make the security update for platforms in custom support only, Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2003, broadly available."
The company's latest operating system, Windows 10, was not targeted in the attack, Microsoft said. "We are working with customers to provide additional assistance as this situation evolves," the company said. The Microsoft blog post can be seen at: https://blogs.technet.micr-osoft Meanwhile, G7 finance chiefs vowed Saturday to unite against cyber crime as they wrapped up talks marked by signs of a thaw in the frosty relations between the US administration and its main partners.
The focus on cyber crime followed a globe-spanning wave of cyber attacks that hit computer systems in nearly 100 countries on Friday, notably disrupting Britain's health service and bringing production at carmaker Renault to a standstill in France. The ministers said in a statement that cyber incidents represent a growing threat to their economies and that tackling them should be a priority. "We know nothing about it but of course we want to know how they hacked into very secure systems," said Ignazio Visco, governor of the Bank of Italy.
"At the moment it seems not to have created any problems for the financial system."Italian finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan joked that the attacks had been perfectly timed. "We tried to convince everyone we organised it to show how important the Italian agenda is," he quipped at the end of two days of discussions in a Norman fortress on Italy's southern Adriatic coast. The isue has been on the agenda of the G7 for some time, with the primary focus on the potential threat of hackers being able to infiltrate the computer systems that run the international banking system, capital and equity markets.
In concrete terms, the ministers mandated experts to continue their work on assessing the nature of the threat. Padoan said progress would be reviewed again when G7 leaders, including Donald Trump and new French President Emmanuel Macron, meet in Sicily at the end of this month. Differences between the Trump administration and the rest of the G7 on free trade, the importance of multilateral institutions and climate change were again side-stepped, as they were at the G20 meeting in Germany earlier in the year.
But participants in the talks said relations with the US team led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, making his G7 debut, were improving as familiarity breeds mutual confidence. "With Steven Mnuchin, our relations are improving every time we meet," Padoan said.
"Of course there are differences and divergences ... but we are working well together on common areas of concern and joint measures." Mnuchin said he "couldn't be happier with the last two days." He felt people were becoming "more comfortable" with the goals of the new administration and said there had been much interest in Trump's plans to slash taxes.
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