Saturday, May 13, 2017 9:26 pm
Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has alerted Nigerians over the recent cyber-attack that is affecting computers across the world – the ransomeware attack.
Director-General and CEO, NITDA, Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, said in a statement Saturday that “this attack, known as “WannaCry” or “WannaCrypt,” spreads by itself between computers and does not require human interaction. It restricts access to the affected system as well as demanding for the payment of ransom. This attack, according to reports, has so far affected over 99 countries and 100,000 machines.
“The ransomware attack exploited vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows Operating System, especially those not currently supported such as Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2003. Microsoft released a patch for the vulnerability in March and machines that were updated with the patch would have been automatically protected.
He cautioned that “should your system be infected by ransomware, isolate the system from your network to prevent the threat from further spreading.
He outlines further actions that can be taken immediately thus:
“As a general precautionary measure and as the security of systems is our collective responsibility, we would like to recommend that Individuals and organisations should:
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