Cyber Attack – Take Two! Trump Ordered Emergency Meetings (Videos)

Asian governments and businesses reported some disruptions from the WannaCry ransomware worm on Monday but cybersecurity experts warned of a wider impact as more employees turned on their computers and checked e-mails.

In China, the world’s second-largest economy, payment systems and government services reported some outages from the ransomware attack, but far less than feared. Disruptions were low in the rest of Asia, including Japan, India, South Korea and Australia.

Microsoft Windows users, brace yourselves. People are worried a second wave of cyberattacks could strike around the world on Monday as employees return to their desks and log onto their computers.

Security experts say the unprecedented ransomware attack that on Friday locked up computers across the globe including UK hospital, FedEx, train systems in Germany among other institutions in exchange for payment, could cause even more trouble as the work week begins. On top of that, copycat versions of the malicious software have already started to spread.

The massive ransomware attackstill reverberating around the world is the kind of thing that is going to keep happening unless rules like those governing conventional warfare are brought in for cyberspace, Microsoft says. Microsoft president Brad Smith warned in a blog post Sunday that the “stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments” has once again caused enormous damage, USA Today reports. Smith says the “WannaCrypt” attack, also known as “WannaCry,” was created with data stolen from the NSA, which had used a vulnerability it found to create cyberweapons. The equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the “US military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen,” Smith said.

On Friday, the world was hit by one of the biggest cyberattacks in recent history.

The culprit was “ransomware” known as WanaCryptOr 2.0, or WannaCry. It operates by encrypting a computer system and demanding a ransom to release it. This money would be paid in the digital currency bitcoin to an unknown source, who would — in theory, at least — provide a decryption key to unlock the system. To do all this, the software exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that is thought to have been first identified by the National Security Agency and was later leaked online. 

Interpol thinks that more than 200,000 people in more than 150 countries were affected — and things could get worse. Experts are warning that many office workers could return to work Monday and find their computers compromised.

President Donald Trump has asked his homeland security adviser to convene two emergency meetings so far on the threat posed by a global cyber-attack, an administration official said.

Trump directed Tom Bossert to hold meetings Friday night and Saturday to address the ransomware attack, which has so far affected more than 200,000 computers in more than 150 countries, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The meetings were earlier reported by Reuters.

Adam Segal, director of digital and cyberspace policy program at Council on Foreign Relations, examines the widespread ransomware cyber-attack affecting more than 150 nations. He speaks on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”