A computer section of the Andhra Pradesh police departments was hit by a global cyber attack on Saturday, authorities said.
Computers in 18 police units in the districts of Chittoor, Krishna, Guntur, Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam were affected. However, officials said that day-to-day running was not hampered.
Police general director N. Sambasiva Rao said some independent computers were affected and were disconnected as a precautionary measure.
He said systems using the Windows operating system were hit by the cyber attack. The police chief's computer with the Apple iOS operating system was secure.
A global cyber attack using hacking tools created by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) has infected tens of thousands of computers in nearly 100 countries.
R. Jaya Lakshmi, Superintendent of Police, Tirupati Urban, said the encrypted data of 'ransomware' in some police stations.
She said they were not able to access the data and hackers were demanding ransom in bitcoin digital currency to restore access.
The official said the data were also stored in different offices in the police administration, which will be able to recover the same.
"The impact is minimal since we also maintain an offline log of FIRs and other documents," he said.
Another official said they were coordinating with the Home Office and that they were taking all precautions to protect the data.
Meanwhile, Telangana police said their computer systems were not affected.
"The TS Police website works perfectly.There is no need to panic," said Telangana technical services incharge Krishna Prasad.
Tags: Police Computers,Andhra Pradesh,Cyber attacks,ransomware
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