Dozens of universities across China have become victims of a massive global ransomware outbreak that have struck nearly 100 countries.

 

中国各地有几十所大学成为勒索软件的受害者，全球已有近100个国家遭受该软件影响。

 

The massive cyber-attack use tools that lock up the files on a computer and encrypts them, and then demands 300 US dollars in Bitcoin to unlock the documents.

 

According to Avast, a cyber-security company, the ransomware that caused the disasters was identified as WannaCry and variants¹ of the name in different parts of the world, reports the BBC.

 

Cheng, a student from east China's Zhejiang Gongshang University, said a lot of people are talking about the cyber-attacks on WeChat (a popular Chinese social media app), and complaining that their Word and PowerPoint documents have been locked, according to xinmin.cn.

 

"As far as I know, universities [in Zhejiang province] such as Ningbo University, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Zhejiang Gongshang University and Zhejiang Sci-tech University have been hit by the cyber-attacks," Cheng said.

 

Many fourth-year university students have suffered badly, as their graduation dissertations² have been locked before their graduation which usually falls in June or July, according to media reports. 

 

Some Chinese universities across China such as Dalian Maritime³ University and Shandong University have issued notices informing their students about the latest development of the issue and remind them to install a software patch released by Microsoft for the security holes, and update and backup their systems. 

 

More than 45,000 attacks have been recorded in 99 countries, including the UK, India, Ukraine, Egypt, China, Russia and Italy as of Saturday, according to the Guardian⁴.

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