Alwaght- President Vladimir Putin has called for discussing the problem of cyber security at a "serious political level" with other countries.
"This question should be discussed at once at a serious political level and a system of protection from such events devised," Putin said while answering media questions in Beijing.
Cyber-attack on May 12 has not inflicted any significant damage to Russian agencies but the situation in general is alarming, Putin said.
"There hasn’t been any significant damage for us and our agencies, banks or healthcare system," Putin said. "But in general this (cyber-attack) is serious and there is nothing good here, this arouses concern."
He added that the ransomware that hit computers across the world could backfire on its creators. The Russian president said, “The ransomware was apparently developed in the US after Microsoft’s management has made it clear that the virus originated from US intelligence services.”
Last year, Moscow proposed discussing cybersecurity threats with Washington with the aim of drafting a bilateral agreement, but to no effect. “Unfortunately, they refused our proposal,” Putin said.
“The previous administration told us they were interested in reaching back to this proposal again, but nothing was actually done,” he explained.
The WannaCry ransomware infected more than 200,000 computers worldwide on Friday, extorting victims to pay hundreds of dollars’ worth in Bitcoin or face losing their files.
The malware spreads as a worm — scanning other computers linked to any machine or system it infects for the same defect and leaping onto them — through a vulnerability in Microsoft systems, particularly on outdated software like Windows XP or Windows Server 2003.
The malware includes an encryption package that automatically downloads itself to infected computers, locking up nearly all of the machines' files and demanding payment of $300 to $600 for a key to unlock them.
