Ransomware: NITDA urges sustained cybersecurity awareness campaign

ITRealms:

The Director General and Chief Executive Officer, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, has beckoned on Nigerian Internet stakeholders to sustain the cybersecurity awareness campaign in the country following the recent attacks by a ransomware, also known as WannaCry, reports ITRealms.

Reviewing the situation which affected over 150 countries globally, Pantami said, WannaCript ransomware attack has been contained and Nigeria was largely spared from the attack due to the massive enlightenment campaign, awareness and proactive measures put out to swiftly deal with any reported incident.

“The efforts of all stakeholders in the IT industry are highly commendable and appreciated,” he asserted.

According to him, reports have shown that computer networks in more than 150 countries and more than 200,000 people had been affected by this attack, considered to be one of the biggest cybersecurity attacks in recent history. Traces in Nigeria appeared to be isolated cases as no major incident is reported in the country.

Pantami pointed out that as IT systems have now become part of our lives, the need for all to be vigilant and proactive as far as security is concerned cannot be overemphasized.

For users of Microsoft systems, NITDA boss has suggested some steps including that old operating systems should be upgraded to the latest version ( of Windows 10). This will enable them get the latest protection from Microsoft.

The recent security update released by Microsoft, MS17-010, he said, should be installed as soon as possible, stressing that where necessary, Windows Defender Antivirus should be enabled as it helps in detecting this ransomware and similar attacks.

For systems that have been attacked, tools have been developed to unlock the files locked by this ransomware – the WannaDecrpyt or Wannakey.

“They have been found to have successfully decrypted systems infected with the ransomware,” he said.

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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