Nations battle cyberattack damages; UK focuses on hospitals

Teams of technicians worked "round the clock" Saturday to restore hospital computer systems in Britain and check transport services in other nations after a global cyberattack that hit dozens of countries crippled the U.K.'s health system. In Russia, where a wide array of systems came under attack, officials said services had been restored or the virus contained.

The extortion attack, which locked up computers and held users' files for ransom, is believed to be the biggest of its kind ever recorded, disrupting services in nations as diverse as the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Spain and India. Europol, the European Union's police agency, said the onslaught was at "an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits."

The ransomware appeared to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that was purportedly identified by the U.S. National Security Agency for its own intelligence-gathering purposes and was later leaked to the internet.

It was not yet known who perpetrated Friday's attacks. Two security firms — Kaspersky Lab and Avast — said they had identified the malicious software behind the attack in over 70 countries, although both said the attack had hit Russia the hardest.

The Russian Interior Ministry, which runs the country's police, confirmed it was among those that fell victim to the ransomware, which typically flashes a message demanding a payment to release the user's own data. Spokeswoman Irina Volk was quoted by the Interfax news agency Saturday as saying the problem had been "localized" and that no information was compromised.

A spokesman for the Russian Health Ministry, Nikita Odintsov, said on Twitter that the cyberattacks on his ministry were "effectively repelled."

Russia's central bank said Saturday it had seen no incidents "compromising the data resources of bank institutions," state news agency Tass reported. The national railway system said although it was attacked, rail operations were unaffected.

French carmaker Renault's assembly plant in Slovenia halted production after it was targeted in the global cyberattack. Radio Slovenia said Saturday the Revoz factory in the southeastern town of Novo Mesto stopped working on Friday evening to stop the malware from spreading. The radio said the factory is working with the central office in France to resolve the problem.

In Britain, the National Cyber Security Center says it is "working round the clock" with experts to restore vital health services.

British Home Secretary Amber Rudd — who was chairing a government emergency security meeting Saturday in response to the attack — said 45 public health organizations were hit, though she stressed that no patient data had been stolen. The attack froze computers at hospitals across the country, with some canceling all routine procedures. Patients were asked not to go to hospitals unless it was an emergency and even some key services like chemotherapy were canceled.

British media had reported last year that most public health organizations were using an outdated version of Microsoft Windows that was not equipped with security updates.

Krishna Chinthapalli, a doctor at Britain's National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery who wrote a paper on cybersecurity for the British Medical Journal, said many British hospitals still use Windows XP software, introduced in 2001.

Security experts said the attack appeared to be caused by a self-replicating piece of software that enters companies and organizations when employees click on email attachments, then spreads quickly internally from computer to computer when employees share documents.

The security holes it exploits were disclosed several weeks ago by TheShadowBrokers, a mysterious group that has published what it says are hacking tools used by the NSA as part of its intelligence-gathering.

Shortly after that disclosure, Microsoft announced that it had already issued software "patches," or fixes, for those holes — but many users haven't yet installed the fixes or are using older versions of Windows.

In the U.S., FedEx Corp. reported that its Windows computers were "experiencing interference" from malware, but wouldn't say if it had been hit by ransomware.

Elsewhere in Europe, the attack hit companies including Spain's Telefonica, a global broadband and telecommunications company.

Germany's national railway said Saturday that departure and arrival display screens at its train stations were affected, but there was no impact on actual train services. Deutsche Bahn said it deployed extra staff to busy stations to provide customer information, and recommended that passengers check its website or app for information on their connections.

Other European organizations hit by the massive cyberattack included soccer clubs in Norway and Sweden, with IF Odd, a 132-year-old Norwegian soccer club, saying its online ticketing facility was down.

Security officials in Britain urged organizations to protect themselves from ransomware by updating their security software fixes, running anti-virus software and backing up data elsewhere.