Russian Critical Infrastructure Avoids Serious Damage in Global Cyberattack

Russia's critical infrastructure facilities have avoided serious damage as a result of the recent large-scale WannaCry virus attack, Oleg Khramov, a deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, told Kommersant newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to Khramov, in accordance with the decree of Russian President [Vladimir Putin], Russia has been creating a "system to detect, prevent and eliminate the consequences of computer attacks on the information resources of the Russian Federation."

"We have managed to avoid serious damage due to the mentioned state system. The critical information infrastructure was ready to resist a massive spread of this virus," Khramov said.

Russia's critical infrastructure includes the information systems of defense industry, healthcare sector, transport and communications, as well as the information resources of banking, finance and energy sectors.

The large-scale cyberattack which has compromised organizations in dozens of countries worldwide, including Russia, started on May 12, and, according to the Kaspersky Lab IT company the attacks were carried out by the use of a specific ransomware called WannaCry.

On May 14, Europol Executive Director Rob Wainwright said that 200,000 users in 150 countries, including businesses and large corporations, were subjected to the attack. The virus blocked computers with messages flashing on the screen demanding money to remove the restriction.