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More than 45,000 attacks of the WannaCry ransomware have been recorded in 74 countries around the world, according to reports.

Security researchers at Kapersky Lab said that Russia was the worst hit.

Other countries that were in the top 20 worst affected included Ukraine, India, Taiwan, China, Romania, Egypt, Iran, Brazil, Spain and Italy.

Around 1,000 computers at the Russian Interior Ministry have been affected by the huge cyber attack that hit countries including Britain and Spain today, a spokeswoman for the ministry told Interfax.

The ministry reportedly did not lose any information in these attacks.

(Image: malwaretech)

Tech firm F-Secure said it has received reports from more than 60 countries.

Mikko Hypponen, its chief research officer, called it "the biggest ransomware outbreak in history".

And the Director of Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky Lab said the number of cyber attacks is still growing.

Researchers believe a criminal organisation is behind this, given its sophistication.

Kurt Baumgartner, principal security researcher at Kaspersky, said the malware has translations in dozens of languages,and instructions for paying the ransom are displayed in the language set for that computer.

The UK's National Health System was hit hard today as about 40 trusts were affected by the cyber attack, leading NHS England to declare a 'major incident'.

Many hospitals and GP surgeries have been forced to shut down their entire IT systems, after ransomware notes from hackers appeared on their computers, threatening to delete all their files in seven days unless $300 in bitcoin currency is paid.

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(Image: Getty)

Microsoft said its engineers had added detection and protection against a ransomware attack that had disrupted hospitals in England and infected computers in dozens of other countries around the world.

“Today our engineers added detection and protection against new malicious software known as Ransom:Win32.WannaCrypt,” a Microsoft spokesman said in a statement.

It said the company was working with its customers to provide additional assistance.

In Russia, telecom giant Megafon has also been targeted.

RT.com reported that Megafon’s internal network had been affected and the work of the support team had been temporarily hindered.

(Image: Moment RF)

Telecommunications giant Telefonica was among the targets in Spain, though it said the attack was limited to some computers on an internal network and had not affected clients or services.

A Telefonica spokesman said a window appeared on screens of infected computers that demanded payment with the digital currency bitcoin in order to regain access to files.

In Spain, the attacks did not disrupt the provision of services or networks operations of the victims, the government said in a statement.