1st LD: Spain suffering cyber attack on "massive scale":CNI

The cryptology branch of Spain's National Center for Intelligence (CNI) confirmed on Friday that several Spanish companies, including multinational telecommunications giant Telefonica have suffered a "massive" cyber attack.

"There has been a warning over a massive ransomware attack on a number of organizations and that affects Windows systems, encrypting all of their files and the network units to which they are connected, infecting the rest of the Windows systems on the said network," explained a communique published by the CNI.

Reports in the Spanish media said that Telefonica bore the brunt of the attack of "ramsomware" which is a computer virus that makes users' computers useless unless a payment is made to those who hacked their system.

The CNI said the virus is a version of "WannaCry" which attacks a computer using the Windows operating system, ciphering its archives and using a weakness in command controls to infect the other machines in the same network.

The attack caused the crash of the computers of Telefonica personnel at the company's Madrid headquarters in "Las Tablas" to the north of the capital, leaving them with blue screens and also halting other devices.

Other companies thought to have been attacked by the virus are consultancy firm, KPMG, the BBVA and Santander banks, energy company, Iberdrola and Vodafone, although none have so far confirmed they have been affected.

Hospitals in Britain were also reported to be suffering from a similar attack on Friday, but it is not yet known whether the incidents are connected with each other. Endit