ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Cyber Emergency Response Team (NCERT) has issued an advisory to 39 key ministries and institutions and warned them of a “severe risk” posed by the ongoing ‘Blue Locker’ malware attacks, an NCERT spokesperson said on Sunday, confirming that a few Pakistani organizations had already been affected by the ransomware.
NCERT, which handles cybersecurity threats, alerts and coordination for government ministries and institutions, advisory came after the ransomware targeted some organizations in the South Asian country, according NCERT spokesman Imran Haider.
“Pakistan Petroleum has been impacted severely and some other organizations were also attacked, but our deployed system is detecting and blocking it continuously,” he told Arab News.
Blue Locker ransomware can impact Windows-based desktops, laptops and servers as well as network shares, cloud-synced storage and backup systems accessible during the attack, according to an Aug. 9 NCERT advisory seen by Arab News.
“The Blue Locker ransomware encrypts victim files, appends the .blue (dot blue) extension, and demands ransom in exchange for decryption keys,” it said, adding that the attack may initiate through trojanized downloads, phishing emails, unsafe file-sharing platforms and compromised websites.
