Invest in cyber security or prepare for chaos

A major ransomware attack carried out through hacking tools allegedly developed by the US National Security Agency and leaked online in March is a wake-up call to organisations and nations on poor cyber security practices and abysmal awareness of these issues among ordinary computer and internet users. The most drastic effects of these attacks were visible in Britain where computer systems at many National Health Service-affiliated hospitals crashed denying doctors access to patient data and putting other computer-directed systems like emergency room allocations, ambulances, X-ray, MRI, and CT scan systems and radiology and blood test result services out of action.

It is believed that many vulnerable victims of the ransomware attack, which encrypted data stored on computers and networks and demanded a fee for releasing the data, paid out to the extortionists. The attacks were perpetrated through e-mails which tricked the recipients into opening attachments that purportedly contained invoices, job offers, and security warnings.

Most organisations continue to operate with outdated operating systems and are not training employees on some of the basic protocols. It is these loopholes that the hackers exploited and have now led to the infections spreading to an estimated one lakh computers in several dozen countries. These WannaCry/WannaCrypt0r 2.0 attacks have come at a time when the implications of cyber attacks are becoming clearer to politicians who are now at their receiving end. For a long time, it was the cyber security wings of corporations and governments that ploughed a lonely furrow against hacking.

But the attack, allegedly by Russian hackers, on the Hillary Clinton and Emmanuel Macron campaigns, which led to the leaking of several key documents and emails, have wisened political parties on the need to firm up security. In a networked world where computer applications control business processes and databases in diverse fields like banking, telecom, and media, cyber attacks have the potential to throw life out of gear. Regulations mandating all organisations to submit themselves to independent cyber security audits is the need of the hour.