Even as a worldwide alert has been sounded over the ransomware virus attack, an IT company and a star hotel in Mysuru had become unsuspecting victims of a similar cyber attack earlier.
Though no fresh cases had been reported in Mysuru, the cyber police here recalled that an IT company, which was the target more than two years ago, had paid ransom in the form of bitcoins to have its computer system restored and files recovered.
Similarly, a star hotel in the city too had suffered a ransomware attack about a year ago. The hotel lost a good portion of its data and files when it reformatted its software before getting a ransom call.
H.S. Renukaradhya, inspector, Cyber Crime Wing, Mysuru, told The Hindu that all computers of the IT company in Mysuru simply froze one day, sending the management into a tizzy. When the computers would just not work owing to the encryption, the hackers sent a message to the company offering a decryption key, but only on payment of ransom in bitcoins.
“The company management eventually paid about eight bitcoins as the computers became inaccessible to employees and work was suffering,” Mr. Renukaradhya said. Each bitcoin is now worth over ₹1.2 lakh, but costed marginally less when the attack took place then.
As there are several websites dealing in bitcoins, the police said it was almost impossible to trace the recipient of bitcoins. The hotel may not have paid ransom, but its room bookings went awry after the cyber attack.
Identifying both the attacks in Mysuru as ransomware, Mr. Renukaradhya said the malware infection usually happens through email attachments. “Don’t open email attachments normally ending with .exe sent to you from unknown senders,” he cautioned.
Also, he said the old Microsoft Operating System XP was more vulnerable to an attack and advised users to upgrade their operating systems to strengthen their computer system security. Pirated anti-virus and operating systems were also vulnerable, he said.
