WannaCry hits government agencies
Virus attack leaves land offices in NCR non-functional.
New Delhi: With the ransomware bug bringing online transactions and registrations to a standstill across India, Gurugram — the cyber city — too failed to remain untouched by the virus threat.
The city, which used to register over 150 to 200 online registration of land in tehsils, had to remain non-functional for the last four days, incurring heavy loss to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees to the state exchequer.
Besides tehsils, other online governmental authorities like passport services and regional transport services also bore the brunt and chose to remain non-functional. With most of the government offices taking precautionary measures, they had to undergo major upgradation of their systems to keep the bug away.
In order to prevent their systems from getting bugged by the ransomware virus and to protect the vital data from being stolen, the state government is uploading anti-virus software on all their systems. The process of upgradation of computers has resulted in the non-functioning of various government systems.
Considered as hubs for several BPOs and KPOs, the multinationals too followed the protocol and called in the experts to prevent virus attack by downloading anti-virus and anti-malware software.
To educate people about the probable virus attack, different modes of communication were used. After the news of WannaCry virus broke out, many people staunched their online bank transactions. Several people also stopped using laptops that didn’t have an upgraded operating system. There have also been reports of certain ATMs in Delhi and NCR being rendered non-functional due to the virus, which has also taken a toll on the financial transactions in the city.
Even Noida and Greater Noida were not spared from the attacks. Following an advisory issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the district headquarters, banks and healthcare institutions across Noida and Greater Noida too have started upgrading their software systems, with a security patch as a precautionary measure, in the wake of the ransomware attack triggered by the WannaCry virus.