No serious impact in India due to ransomware: IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad

The government today said there was no serious impact in the country due to a global ransomware cyber attack, except for a few isolated incidents in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the systems run by the National Informatics Centre were secured and running smoothly.

"There is no major impact in India unlike other countries. We are keeping a close watch. As per the information received so far, there have been isolated incidents in limited areas in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh,"

Prasad told reporters here.

India is on high alert, monitoring critical networks across sectors like banking, telecom, power and aviation to ensure that systems are protected in the wake of reports of possible cyber attack by ransomware 'WannaCry' on the country's vital networks.

'WannaCry' has disrupted networks in over 150 countries, including Russia and the UK, and is being termed as one of the most widespread cyber attacks in the history.

Reports suggest that over two lakh systems globally could have been infected by the malicious software.

India's cyber security unit CERT-In earlier said it has not received any formal report of cyber attack on India's vital networks.

"Everything seems to be normal, so far. No reports have come to Cert-In. We have been in touch with Microsoft and others...even they have not got any reports," Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) director general Sanjay Bahl told PTI.

Ransomware is a malicious software that blocks access to data unless a ransom is paid.