The WannaCry ransomware is estimated to have hit lakhs of computers in India on Monday, despite security experts scrambling to take evasive action over the weekend.

Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs found India to be among the worst hit by the malware, and Indian IT security firm QuickHeal said over 48,000 systems were found infected.

Reports of possible attacks came from West Bengal, where the State Electricity Distribution Company’s computers at its office in West Midnapore district were affected, as also panchayat offices in Kerala’s Wayanad district. Some ATMs have also been shut down as a preventive step.

BFSIs worst hit Aaditya Uthappa, Director (Enterprise Business) at Paladion Networks, said BFSI and telecom firms were the biggest victims.

“Some sectors affected in India are Andhra Pradesh Police, an automaker, banks, Indian operations of a few MNCs, retail and manufacturing companies. These have been restricted to a few major cities of the country,” he said.

WannaCry has hit computers globally, asking victims to cough up $300 for each system to be unfreezed. “Our support lines are jammed, and the team has been working overtime through the weekend,” said Sharda Tickoo, Technical Head at Trend Micro, India.

Security consultants said attacks were under-reported as clients were worried about losing face.

“The impact is still largely unknown in India, given that companies are reluctant to share information on the kind of impact so far. There are many organisations that are doing nothing, as they do not have the skills or resources to conduct such a review and are like the ostrich with its head buried in the sand, hoping that the storm will go away,” Sree Parthasarty, Partner at Deloitte, told BusinessLine .

Big firms well prepared Experts say that while not many instances of infections were found among large enterprises who spend top dollars to secure their IT systems, smaller firms and even individuals were hit by the malware in a big way.

“The large MNCs in India have a high level of preparedness and hence faced very few impacts,” said Subhendu Sahu, Acting Country Manager for India, FireEye.

Meanwhile, India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) told PTI that it had not received any reports of infections in India.

(With inputs from KV Kurmanath in Hyderabad and Venkatesh Ganesh in Bengaluru)

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