A day after the computers of four village panchayats in Kerala were hit, 23 computers of the Railway Division office in Palakkad came under cyber attack on Tuesday.
A statement issued by the railway authorities said that 23 out of the 500 computers were affected by the ransomware cyber attack. However, it said the data on the affected computers had back up and were stored in printed files and hence there was no loss of data.
"The cyber attack was noticed on 23 computers which flashed the message of asking money to be paid in bitcoins, or warned the data would be lost forever. Since all the affected computers contained document files pertaining to the employees, that have backed up files, the data loss is only temporary," said the statement.
It said the railways uses a different system for ticketing and other passenger related issues and cargo movements, which have not been affected at all
On Monday, the computers of two village panchayats in Kerala were hit, with messages demanding $300 in virtual currency to unlock the files.
Officials who on Monday opened the office computer at the Thariyode panchayat office in the hilly district of Wayanad found that four of their computers have been hacked.
"The four computers were switched on as usual and they were unable to open the any document files as the virus displayed messages demanding a payment of $300 in virtual currency Bitcoin to unlock files and return them to the user. We have informed the district authorities about this," said Santhosh, a panchayat official.
Likewise, another village panchayat at Aruvapulam near Konni in Pathanamthitta district on Monday morning got a similar virus message when their computer was switched on.