The British government said on Saturday it does not yet know who was behind a massive global cyberattack that disrupted Britain’s health care services and targeted vital computer systems in as many as 100 other countries.

British Interior Minister Amber Rudd said Britain’s National Cyber Security Center was working with the country’s health service to ensure the attack that began Friday was contained and limited.

She said Britain’s National Crime Agency was still working with her ministry to find out where the attacks came from and that the British government did not know if the attacks had been directed by a foreign government.

What appeared to be the biggest cyberextortion attack in history exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that was identified in leaked documents by the U.S. National Security Agency earlier this year.

With more than 75,000 attacks launched on Friday, cybercrime experts around the world were investigating a concentration of attacks in Russia, Ukraine, and India — countries where the use of older, unpatched versions of Microsoft Windows is widespread.

The hackers attempt to trick victims into opening malicious attachments to spam e-mails by saying they contained invoices, job offers, security warnings, and other seemingly legitimate files.

The extortionists demand payments of $300 to $600 to restore access once computers are crippled by the scam. Cybersecurity firms said criminal organizations were probably behind the attack.

Russia’s Interior Ministry, Emergencies Ministry, and biggest bank, Sberbank, were all targeted, officials said.

The Interior Ministry said on its website that around 1,000 computers had been infected, but it had localized the virus. Russia’s Investigative Committee denied reports that it was attacked.

Russia’s Health Ministry and Emergencies Ministry told Russian news agencies that they had repelled the cyberattacks, while Sberbank said its cybersecurity arrangements had prevented viruses from entering its systems.

Russia’s Central Bank said Saturday that it detected massive cyberattacks on domestic banks, but the resources of the Central Bank itself were “not compromised.”

Megafon, a top Russian mobile operator, said it had come under attacks that appeared similar to those that crippled U.K. hospitals. A spokesman said mobile communications weren’t affected but the attacks interrupted the work of its call centers.

Hospitals ‘Crippled’

Spain and the United Kingdom were hit particularly hard. Hospitals across Britain found themselves without access to their computers or phone systems. Many canceled routine procedures and asked patients not to come to the hospital unless it was an emergency. 

British Prime Minister Theresa May said that, while some hospitals were crippled, there was no evidence patient data had been compromised.

Spain’s giant Telefonica telecommunications company was hit, prompting Spanish authorities to take measures to protect critical infrastructure in transportation, energy, telecommunications, and financial services.

Only a small number of U.S. organizations were hit because the hackers appear to have begun their campaign in Europe, cybersecurity firms said.

By the time the hackers turned their attention to the United States, spam filters had identified the new threat and flagged the ransomware-laden emails as malicious.

The security holes exploited by the hackers were disclosed several weeks ago by TheShadowBrokers, a mysterious group that has published what it says are hacking tools used by the White House security agency as part of U.S. intelligence-gathering.

Microsoft said it was pushing out automatic Windows updates to defend clients from the virus.

Some material for this article came from AP, BBC, AFP, Reuters, Tass and Interfax.
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President Donald told graduates of Liberty University – the nation’s largest Christian college, whose leader was among Trump’s earliest supporters — to “embrace” the label of an outsider, another apparent criticism of the Washington establishment.

“Relish the opportunity to be an outsider,” Trump told a crowd of about 50,000 in the Lynchburg, Virginia, school’s stadium. “Being an outsider is fine. Embrace the label because it’s the outsiders who change the world.”

The speech was Trump’s first commencement address and his first extended public appearance since his Tuesday firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating Russia’s role in last year’s U.S. presidential election and possible connections between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.

“We don’t need a lecture’

Continuing his populist, anti-establishment narrative, the president said he has seen “first-hand how the system is broken” in Washington, and he urged the more than 18,000 graduates to resist “a small group of failed voices who think they know everything.”

“We don’t need a lecture from Washington on how to lead our lives,” said Trump.

Before the address, Trump and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr. stood for the U.S. national anthem. Falwell, the son of the late televangelist and conservative activist Jerry Falwell, Sr., as widely seen as having helped Trump win 80 percent of the white evangelical vote.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that three-quarters of white evangelicals approved of Trump’s performance during his first 100 days in office, compared to 39 percent of the general public.

Before the friendly crowd, Trump expressed his appreciation for evangelicals. “Boy, did you come out and vote,” he said.

The president received some of the loudest applause when he assured the crowd that he would continue to protect their religious freedom.

Trump pledges protection for conservatives

“As long as I am your president, no one is ever going to stop you from practicing your faith or from preaching what’s in your heart,” he said.

Christian conservatives have been pleased with Trump’s appointment of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and his choice of socially conservative cabinet members, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Charmaine Yoest, a prominent anti-abortion activist.

Some Christian conservatives have given mixed reviews, though, to Trump’s executive order that directs the Internal Revenue Service to relax a rarely enforced limit on partisan political church activity. The order did not address broad exemptions from recognizing same-sex marriage, one of the most pressing issues for religious conservatives.

Watch VOA’s Carolyn Presutti reporting earlier in the day:

Trump has spoken at Liberty University before. While campaigning there in January 2016, he drew laughs from audience members when he referred to one of the Bible’s books as “Two Corinthians” rather than the more common “Second Corinthians.” He promised during that speech, “We’re going to protect Christianity… I don’t have to be politically correct.”

Trump is the second sitting president to deliver a commencement speech at the university. George H.W. Bush was the first to do so in 1990.
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An aggressive wave of cyberattacks has hit companies and public institutions around the globe, causing international havoc and bringing many services to a standstill. The cyberextortion attempt appeared to use stolen software developed by a U.S. spy agency.

One of the first and worst attacks was aimed at Britain’s National Health Service. A wave of crippling ransomware hit dozens of hospitals across the country Friday, prompting the NHS to declare a “major incident.” Some hospitals diverted ambulances and canceled surgeries as a result of the attack, which blocked doctors’ access to patients’ files.

Ransomware is a type of computer malware, software that has a malevolent intent, that infects a target system, locks and encrypts all files, and then demands a cash payment from the victim in return for reversing the encryption.

A researcher at the Finnish cybersecurity company F-Secure said Friday’s apparently coordinated attacks were “the biggest ransomware outbreak in history,” The Associated Press reported. An analyst at another cybersecurity firm, Veracode, said the rapid spread of attacks pointed to the involvement of criminal organizations.

45,000 attacks in 74 countries

The international cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Labs, based in Russia, said it recorded 45,000 attacks in 74 countries. The worst hit by far was Russia, with serious problems also reported by computer networks in Taiwan, India and Ukraine.

The Russian Interior Ministry, which oversees police throughout the world’s largest country, at first denied it had been hacked, but later admitted about a thousand of its computers had been penetrated.

There was no immediate word on who carried out the cyberattacks, and it was not known whether any of the victims paid any ransom Friday.

The demands reportedly were for relatively trivial sums — the equivalent of $300, paid in bitcoin, a digital currency. But in past attacks, the payment demands multiplied to much larger sums in short order. Bitcoin payments can be difficult if not impossible to trace.

The ransomware used Friday was labeled with various names — WannaCryptOr, WannaCry or WCry — but all appeared to operate in a similar way. They gained entry to targeted computer systems by exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft computer operating systems that was discovered and developed by the U.S. National Security Agency.

The security hole, known as “EternalBlue,” was stolen from U.S. government computers and disclosed on the internet earlier this year by a group known as TheShadowBrokers.

Microsoft fixed problem in March

Microsoft issued software patches to close the vulnerability in its operating systems two months ago, but many computer systems around the world have not yet been updated, or instead rely on older equipment that remains vulnerable to attack.

Security experts said the ransomware encountered Friday is a self-replicating piece of software that spreads from computer to computer as it finds systems that have not been shielded from intrusion. The malware enters large organizations’ computer networks, such as those at British hospitals, when an employee clicks on an innocent-appearing attachment to open the file, and thus releases the ransomware.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said it was clear that her nation’s problems were part of a wider international attack that had many victims.

China also was targeted by the unknown computer hackers, and the U.S. parcel delivery firm FedEx said its operations were hit. In Spain, telecommunications giant Telefónica was one of the early victims, and employees of MegaFon, one of the largest cellphone companies in Russia, said they also were hit.

NSA technique used

Computer experts said the ransomware did not to appear to be very sophisticated, but the way in which it spread, using the intrusion technique developed by NSA, clearly was. They noted the ransom demands that flashed onto users’ screens were in dozens of languages, indicating the attack had been well planned and coordinated.

Ransomware attacks and other computer intrusions, such as the hacking incident that unfolded in France last week on the eve of that country’s presidential election, are on the rise throughout the world.

Last year, a hospital in Los Angeles, California, said it paid a $17,000 ransom to regain control of its computers from hackers.
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The committee that raised public and private money to put on last summer’s Democratic National Convention used surplus funds to hand out nearly $1 million in bonuses for staff members, as well as grants to help Philadelphia schools and nonprofits.

That rankled some state lawmakers who ponied up $10 million in tax dollars for the event at the request of Democratic Governor Tom Wolf.

The bonuses to the host committee staff came from a $4 million post-convention surplus and were disclosed in a Jan. 31 filing with the Federal Election Commission. They were first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

All told, the committee raised $86 million.

Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, the host committee’s chairman, called the bonuses a reward for low pay and long hours. The bonuses ranged from $500 up to $310,000 for the committee’s executive director, Kevin Washo, whose committee salary was $13,000 a month for two years.

Rendell told the Inquirer that Washo’s payment was part bonus and part back pay for unpaid work he did in 2013 through early 2015 when a small team worked to get the Democratic National Committee to select Philadelphia for its convention.

Washo said the payouts were decided by him, Rendell and chief operating officer Eliza Rose, who received a $43,000 bonus. The committee’s chief finance officer, Jason O’Malley, paid about $8,000 a month, received a $220,000 bonus. O’Malley’s fundraising work deserved a “performance bonus,” Rendell said.

The committee’s largest charitable contribution, $750,000, went to the Philadelphia School District’s Right Books Campaign. Other city nonprofit groups received grants of $10,000 or $25,000 from the committee, which also repaid the city $500,000 for its costs, Washo said.

The state’s $10 million grant was the largest convention donation. The grant money was kept in a separate account from the millions raised from private donors, and covered costs approved by the state, Washo said.

The state dollars were to go toward renting the convention center and construction there, all spent in July, according to an independent auditor’s report.

The state Senate’s ranking member, President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, a Republican from Jefferson, will seek an audit of the money by Pennsylvania’s independently elected auditor general, his office said. The host committee apparently didn’t need the entire $10 million from the state and should have approached Wolf’s office and lawmakers about returning what it didn’t need, Scarnati’s chief of staff, Drew Crompton, said.

“They had at least $4 million more than they needed and, even if it was after the fact, they can certainly return a portion to the commonwealth,” Crompton said.
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 A unit of the U.S. Treasury Department that fights money laundering will provide financial records to an investigation by the Senate into possible ties between Russia and President Donald Trump and his associates, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Senate Intelligence Committee asked for the records from the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, late last month, the Journal cited the people as saying.

One person said the records were needed to decide whether there was collusion between Trump associates and Russia during the 2016 campaign, the Journal said.

Representatives for FinCEN and Republican Senator Richard Burr, the intelligence committee chairman, declined to comment, the Journal said.

The Senate probe took on added significance after Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey earlier this week amid an agency investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible Moscow ties to the Trump presidential campaign.

The House of Representatives intelligence panel is conducting a similar probe.
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