Kalpetta: Kerala too seems to have fallen prey to the cyberattack that wreaked havoc in computer systems across the world.



A set of four computers in the Thariode panchayat in Wayanad is the first known instance of cyberattack in the state, Manorama News reported on Monday. The message from the hackers asked them to submit $300 bitcoins to avoid losing data from the system. The message had first appeared on Friday, but the panchayat officials thought it to be an error and switched off the system. However, when they returned for work after the weekend, the system flashed the same hacked message. Now, it has been confirmed to be a cyberattack.

Cyberattack in Pathanamthita too

Another cyberattack was reported from Aruvappulam grama panchayat office in Pathanamthita. Like the Wayanad incident, the staff had seen the message on Friday. But they came to know it was a cyberattack after the issue was widely reported in the media. The message was first spotted on the server computer. However, as Internet services were blocked, it did not affect other computers. There has been no data breach, officials assert.

Later in the day, similar incidents were reported from Karavaram panchayat office in Thiruvananthapuram and Annamanada and Kuzhoor panchayats in Thrissur.

One computer at Annamanada panchayat was hacked while five in Kuzhoor panchayat have fallen prey to the attack, Manorama News reported.

Read: Kerala police issue alerts as cyberthreat looms

Kerala police was prepared to counter ransomware attacks, says IG

The Kerala Police Cyberdome, the technological research and development center of the state police, had alerted individuals and organizations against the crippling global ransomware attack WannaCry.

Guidelines for computer and Internet users



»To prevent infection, users and organizations are advised to apply patches to Windows systems as mentioned in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010, it said.



» Maintain updated anti-virus software on all systems and check regularly for the integrity of the information stored in the databases.



» Regularly monitor contents of backup files of databases for any unauthorized encrypted contents of data records or external elements, (backdoors /malicious scripts).



Ransomware



Over the weekend, the ransomware hit systems in over 150 countries, including Russia and the UK, in one of the most widespread cyberattacks in history.



In India too, there have been reports of some systems of Andhra Pradesh police being affected.