A global onslaught

Cyberattack is criminal in intent, a vast robbery, rather than an attempt to bring down any specific country

At the time of writing 99 countries around the world, including Pakistan, and on every continent, except Antarctica, have been attacked by hacking tools that are believed to have originally been developed by the US National Security Agency. The attack proliferated swiftly on the afternoon of Friday 12^th May and was worldwide by midnight. It was not specifically targeted but was a general attempt to extort money by a group who may — or may not — be allied to a group called the Shadow Brokers. Infected computers had files encrypted and rendered inaccessible unless a ‘fee’ of around $300 was paid in BitCoins to an account on the Dark Net. Russia is thought to be the worst affected country, the British National Health Service was brought to a halt in many areas, FedEx reported difficulties, as did Telefonica and the German railway system.

Countries of the subcontinent got off lightly, mainly because there is less reliance on computer systems and many of the bureaucracies of developing nations run on paper systems. But Pakistan is a country that is rapidly developing computerised and online services and it is vulnerable. Much of the hardware and software in-country is old, poorly maintained and there are relatively low levels of awareness of the need for cyber security.

This is not science fiction or fantasy, and it was an accident waiting to happen. It is significant that relatively low levels of infection are reported for the US compared to Europe, Russia, and other countries because of high security awareness. The attack is most likely to be criminal in intent, a vast robbery, rather than an attempt to bring down any specific country. That aside it is chillingly revealed that crucial national infrastructure is open to attack and if criminals, can mount an attack such as this it is not a stretch of the imagination to have nation targeting nation in this way. We have all been warned.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2017.

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