The worldwide “ransomware” cyberattack spread to thousands of more computers on Monday as people logged in at work, disrupting business, schools, hospitals and daily life, though no new large-scale breakdowns were reported.
In Britain, whose health service was among the first high-profile targets of the attack on Friday, some hospitals and doctors’ offices were still struggling to recover.
The full extent of the damage from the cyberattack felt in 150 countries was unclear and could worsen if more malicious variations of the online extortion scheme appear.
The initial attack, known as “WannaCry,” paralysed computers running factories, banks, government agencies and transport systems in scores of countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Spain, India and Japan, among others. Among those hit were Russia’s Interior Ministry and companies including Spain’s Telefonica and FedEx Corp. in the U.S.
Renault plant closed
Carmaker Renault said one of its French plants, which employs 3,500 people, wasn’t reopening Monday as technicians dealt with the cyberattack’s aftermath. The temporary halt in production was a “preventative step”, Renault said.
Britain’s National Health Service said about a fifth of NHS trusts the regional bodies that run hospitals and clinics were hit by the attack on Friday, leading to thousands of cancelled appointments and operations. Seven of the 47 affected trusts were still having IT problems on Monday.
The Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre, a non-profit group providing support in computer attacks, said 2,000 computers at 600 locations in Japan were reported affected. Companies including Hitachi and Nissan Motor Co. reported problems but said they said had not seriously affected their business operations.
Chinese state media said 29,372 institutions there had been infected along with hundreds of thousands of devices. Universities and other educational institutions in China were among the hardest hit, possibly because schools tend to have old computers and be slow to update operating systems and security, said Fang Xingdong, founder of ChinaLabs, an internet strategy think tank. Elsewhere in Asia, the Indonesian government urged businesses to update computer security after the malware locked patient files on computers in two hospitals in the capital, Jakarta.
