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Ransomware hits Nigeria’s finance ministry; hacks demand $600

Published

7 years ago

May 21, 2017

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The Nigerian ministry of finance website has been infected by Wannacry virus known as ransomware, the National Daily can report.

And the bad guys are asking the ministry to shell out $600 (bitcoins) in ransom in less than 72 hours or they will infect all the data on the website.

Nigeria has joined over 150 countries in which WannaCry has infected more than 230,000 computers, including those of health institutions in the UK, Telefonica in Spain, FedEx, and others since the cyber-attack launch May 12.

Experts ays systems connected to the Internet without the mist recent edition of Microsoft security updates for Windows operating systems.

ALSO SEE: Hackers’ target Nigerian banks

Shortly after the attack came mainstream, a blogger and programmer developed

KillSwitch, a programme the hackers embedded in the virus, and it’s capable of slowing down WammaCry.

The finance ministry website www.finance.gov.ng now displays a white blank, and a stopwatch counting down to the deadline the attackers gave Nigeria’s government to pay the ransom.

There media reports saying the attack has waned, and, in some places, died as of Friday.