Microsoft president Brad Smith believes that North Korea was behind a massive cyberattack using "WannaCry" ransomware that crippled hospitals earlier this year.

Smith told British ITV News at Microsoft's headquarters that at this point "all observers in the know" concluded that North Korea was behind the attacks. Hackers used tools created by the National Security Agency to lock out computers unless the user paid a ransom.

North Korea has widely been considered the perpetrator of the hack that targeted around 200,000 computers and 150 countries, but this is the first time that a Microsoft executive blamed the country, ITV said.

Smith said that attacks from nation-states like North Korea are becoming more frequent. He added that governments need to do more to protect citizens from malicious attacks.

"We need governments to come together as they did in Geneva in 1949 and adopt a new digital Geneva Convention that makes clear that these cyber-attacks against civilians, especially in times of peace, are off-limits and a violation of international law," he said.