Differing from the government’s view that the WannaCry ransomware attack has had a minimal impact on India and that there was nothing much to worry about, IT experts have warned users against the cyber-attack saying it is expected to rise rapidly in India.
"There are so many states that have been affected. The first thing that they are not doing is checking what systems have been affected," Subhamangala, a cyber security expert told ANI.
Experts suspect that the next wave of attacks will be subjected to the banking sector.
"Our banks may be affected in a couple of hours. We are expecting it and have informed the banks, since most of our ATMs run on the windows operating system which is the operating system effected by WannaCry," Subhamangala added.
The Reserve Bank of India has already all banks to put in place a software update at ATMs to prevent their systems from a malware that has attacked payment systems across the world.
The government on Monday tried to allay fears over the impact of the cyber-attack that hit businesses and institutions in 150 countries across the globe on India. Speaking to IndiaTV, IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said yesterday that India’s cyber security infrastructure was robust and there had been a minimal impact of the attack on India.
"We have been strengthening our cyber security and I can proudly say that the recent cyber-attack had nearly zero per cent impact in India," he said.
Meanwhile, IT experts have also warned IT organizations, businesses and other sectors to take required precautions and update their systems.
WannaCry, the ransomware cyber-attack that has affected computers worldwide has made its way to India, affecting states like West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Kerala.
Currently they are asking anything between Rs. 19,000 to Rs. 39,000 in India in form of Bitcoins in order to decrypt the data back.
The cyber-attack has been deemed as the biggest in history even as IT specialists suggest that the cyber criminals responsible have not made much monetary benefits although the global losses are now running into hundreds of millions of dollars.
(ANI Inputs)
