Nigeria spared in WanaCry Attack- NITDA

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has claimed that Nigeria was largely left unaffected from the monumental ransomware attack known as WannaCry.

Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, director general/CEO, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), on Sunday evening said that the recent WannaCry or WannaCript ransomware attack had been contained and “Nigeria was largely spared due to a massive enlightenment campaign and proactive measures put in place to swiftly deal with any reported incident”.

Worldwide reports indicate that computer networks in more than 150 countries and more than 200,000 people were affected by this attack, making WanaCry one of the biggest cyber attacks in history.

Dr Pantami added that as IT systems have become an important part of our lives, there should be an increased focus on being vigilant and proactive when dealing with security.

The head of NITDA claimed that there were no major incidents in the country but gave Microsoft users the following guidelines:

“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, should be installed as soon as possible; and

“Where necessary, Windows Defender Antivirus should be enabled as it helps in detecting this ransomware and similar attacks”, Dr. Pantami said in a statement.

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

Staff Writer