Major Cyber Attack With Stolen NSA Tools Hits Systems Worldwide

(RTTNews) - A major cyber attack using hacking tools believed to have been developed by the U.S. National Security Agency has hit companies, hospitals and schools worldwide.

Thousands of computers around 99 countries, including the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain and Italy, were said to be affected in the attack.

Ransomware, known as WannaCry and variants of that name, locked computers around the world, demanding payments of $300 to $600 in Bitcoin to restore access.

Cyber-security firm Avast reportedly said it had seen 75,000 cases of the ransomware around the world.

As per the reports, the National Health Service or NHS in England and Scotland appears to have been among the worst hit. Hospitals and clinics were forced to turn away patients after losing access to computers on Friday.

Shipper FedEx Corp said some of its Windows computers were also infected. In a statement, the company said, "We are implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible."

As per some reports, Russia faced more infections among countries. In China, official Xinhua news agency said some secondary schools and universities had been affected.

It was reported that hackers known as The Shadow Brokers claimed in April to have stolen the NSA tools and released them online.