A large-scale cyberattack affected nearly one hundred countries and held tens of thousands of computers ransom throughout the day on Friday.

Antivirus provider Avast reported that at least 75,000 computers had been infected by the crippling malware and that the "WanaCrypt0r 2.0," as it is called, ransomware had been detected in 99 countries.

More than a dozen hospitals in England and major companies, including FedEx and Spain's largest telecom, were targeted Friday.

"The scale of it — that's pretty unprecedented," Ben Rapp, the CEO of IT support company Managed Networks,

Its so bad that some hospitals have now been taken back to using pen and paper. All records have been encrypted. If you had surgery scheduled you're asked to go back home and wait. The sad thing is, its very difficult to get the perpetrators. Terrible

If you get a message from windows asking you to approve updates, please do it, its very very necessary.

Why can't they restore customer records from backup. It doesn't make sense at all! Do doctors depend on computers to do surgery??

Question: Since this attack is on Windows, is Microsoft giving it's users the latest windows upgrade for free? If they are not then would it be wise to conclude that they are the originators of this virus for a profit? .... just thinking aloud...

Is the windows upgrade free since the system was compromised due to it's weakness?

Upgrades e.g from windows xp to windows 7 aren't free (most of the time - sometimes there is a limited offer to upgrade for free)

Updates to the existing software are free and plug some of the exploited vulnerabilities.

People should download and install these updates especially those marked security updates.

Unfortunately that is too much to do for many people till a situation like we currently have

Hackers launched blistering ransomware attacks Tuesday against companies and agencies across the world, particularly targeting Ukranian businesses.
Major global firms reported that they had been targeted, including British advertising agency WPP (WPPGY), Russian oil and gas giant Rosneft and Danish shipping firm Maersk.

"IT systems in several WPP companies have been affected by a suspected cyber attack," WPP said on its Twitter account.

Maersk issued a similar statement, saying its tech systems "are down across multiple sites and business units due to a cyberattack."

The U.S.-based pharmaceutical company Merck (MRK) also said it was hit.
"We confirm our company's computer network was compromised today as part of global hack," Merck said on Twitter.

The source of the attack is not yet clear. It is similar to WannaCry, which spread globally in May, but there are differences. Both asked victims to pay Bitcoin to get their files back, and both use a similar flaw to spread through networks.

Major firms, airports and government departments in Ukraine have been struck by a massive cyber attack which began to spread across Europe on Tuesday afternoon.

In Ukraine, government departments, the central bank, a state-run aircraft manufacturer, the airport in Kiev and the metro network have all been paralysed by the hack.