Germany’s state rail operator Deutsche Bahn had its systems infected by malicious software on Friday that locked thousands of computers globally in an unprecedented cyberattack, Sputnik reported citing local media.
The Bild newspaper reported that passenger information displays at several railway stations – including in Frankfurt and Neustadt – were affected by ransomware called WannaCrypt.
Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) issued a warning late on Friday, saying the program spread through networks on its own, and urged to install the newest operating system updates.
Error messages associated with the program, which locks a computer and demands a payment for restoring access, also popped up on computers of British hospitals and Russia’s Interior Ministry running Windows operating systems.
The massive cyberattack affected the United States, Spain, and Italy – a total of over 90 countries. IT security firm Kaspersky Lab registered some 45,000 infections worldwide, with Russia being hit the most. Microsoft said it had patched up its operating systems against the cyberthreat.