TCRA says probing massive cyber attack

Dar es Salaam. The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) says it is investigation last week’s massive international cyber attack that affected dozens of countries, including Tanzania.

Unknown attackers unleashed a malicious software, dubbed ransomware, that infects computers and prevents users from accessing their files.

The cyber attack is said to have hit 200,000 organisations in 150 countries across the globe.

TCRA Director of ICT Connie Francis told The Citizen that they had received complaints from several individuals since the attack became apparent last week.

“People called to tell us that they could no longer access files on their computers...they wanted us to tell them what they should do,” she said, adding that the victims were advised to take their computers to TCRA and see whether they would be able to salvage anything.

Ms Francis said TCRA was yet to establish whether government or private institutions had been affected on a large scale.

“At the moment, we cannot determine where the virus has hit unless the people affected inform us.”

She said they had written to the antivirus company Kaspersky seeking to get the IP address of computers that had been affected by the virus.

TCRA issued a warning alert to computer users on Friday that they should update their Microsoft operating systems, especially older versions such as Windows XP.

Microsoft put out a patch two months ago for more recent systems, but not all users may have downloaded it.

According to reports, Wellsmore and other cybersecurity experts say the identity of the perpetrators is still unknown.