Massive cyberattack cripples British hospitals

Hospitals across Great Britain closed their doors to all but the most serious cases today after a worldwide cyber attack locked doctors, nurses, and administrators out of their computer systems. British Prime Minister Theresa May said patient data did not appear to be compromised. Analysts believe the ransomware used in the attack exploited a Microsoft security flaw revealed in a recent U.S. intelligence agency leak. They do not believe the hackers targeted the U.K. health system specifically. Experts say the affected systems probably hadn’t had been updated with the latest security patch. Several companies in Spain also had their computer systems frozen by the attack, prompting the government to activate a special protocol to protect critical infrastructure. The threat posed by ransomware made headlines last year when a California hospital system revealed it paid $17,000 to hackers to unlock its hijacked system. According to security firm Kaspersky Lab, hackers launched more than 45,000 attacks in 74 countries today.