The UAE’s telecommunications regulator said on Saturday that it has reported no cases of the Wanna Cry ransom attacks that impacted computers around the world.
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) confirmed in a statement cited by state news agency WAM that the UAE had escaped any impact from the virus.
“So far, we have not received any e-government service cases that are affected by the virus. WannaCry is a malicious programme that affects smartphones and computers by encrypting and locking their data so that it cannot be accessed until payment is made,” said the Computer Emergency Response Team (aeCERT), part of the TRA.
The team said it called on system administrators to increase the degree of readiness, continuously monitor systems, and inform the authority in case their devices get exposed to the virus.
Thousands of institutions around the world have been subjected to a series of Wanna Cry ransom attacks over the past day, causing their data to be encrypted with a claim for payment.
Security researchers say it used a Windows exploit first developed by the United States National Security Agency to shut down computer systems across several countries on Friday night.
According to anti-virus provider Kaspersky, there were at least 45,000 attacks in 74 countries, Reuters reported. The numbers were an initial estimate and were expected to go up.
The TRA called on users to avoid opening any links and files that they may receive from unknown sources, trying to deceive them into downloading it.
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