WannaCry Encrypts West Bengal Electricity Department

On May 12 a ransomware WannaCry attacked massively over 150 countries and infected millions of computers including West Bengal where the computers of State Electricity Distribution Office were hacked.

This malware, a Trojan virus known as WannaCry, WanaCryptor, or Wcry, encrypts files, and then threatens to destroy them, unless the victim pays a ransom.

Although state electricity minister Sawandadev Chatterjee stated that ‘The central server was not affected at all. The computers have been replaced where they were infected. For coping up the situation we have done several meetings with the officials.’

After the cyber attack, first hacking news broke out from Western power division of Midnapore. According to this division sources, about 18 computers in different centers were infected. Another instance was in customer service center of power sector in Belda city where 5 computers were hindered.

Due to the attack, electricity department were not able to work and thus causing severe inconvenience to public. Total of 18 computers were hacked. Tanmoy Mahapatra, manager of Kharagpur division stated, ‘At first 300 dollars as a ransom was sought, it is increasing now. We are consulting experts of the power sector, including engineers. However, customers are not in any trouble.’

On the other hand, the activities of two customer care centers Brajlal Chowk and Chaitnyapur were totally blocked in Haldia of East Midnapore. A source working there said, ‘four computers had been attacked, the official work totally stopped, there was nothing but the red dots on the computer screen.’

Another case was reported in electricity division of south Dinajpur in Balurghat district. Here, three computers of the department have been encrypted and no work can be done.

As a result, many important documents of the Balurghat divisional office are likely to be damaged.

Although the incident happened in different countries of the world, such incidents were reported in West Bengal's government office.