Ransomware attack a 'wakeup call' for governments - Microsoft

The global cyber virus attack on private and public sector computer systems is a “wakeup call” for governments to deal with the way such threats are countered, a senior Microsoft executive said.

The software giant's chief legal officer Brad Smith said the ransomware attack that had crippled operations from Britain's National Health Service to courier heavweight Federal Express was the equivalent of the US military having a Tomahawk missile stolen.

The ransomware, called 'WannaCry' has hit more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries since Friday, Europol says. The perpetrators demand money in return for unlocking encrypted data.

Internet security firm Kaspersky said the largest number of attacks occurred in Russia, but Ukraine, India, and Taiwan have also been hit.

"In just the first day of the attack, we found WannaCry in 74 countries," said Kaspersky's Alex Perekalin.

Microsoft's Smith said the latest attack provides "yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem".

“This is an emerging pattern in 2017. We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the (US) National Security Agency has affected customers around the world.”

“Repeatedly, exploits in the hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused widespread damage. An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen.”

Smith said the attack represented an “unintended but disconcerting link between the two most serious forms of cybersecurity threats in the world today – nation-state action and organized criminal action”.

“The governments of the world should treat this attack as a wake-up call. They need to take a different approach and adhere in cyberspace to the same rules applied to weapons in the physical world,” he said.