Europe has been targeted by new ransomware which has so far affected numerous Russian oil companies, one British advertising firm and the Ukrainian government.
The first company to be hit was WPP, the world’s largest ad agency according to the Daily Mail, where staff were told not to use their computers.
Russia’s Rosneft oil company and Danish shipping company A.P. Moller-Maersk has also been affected by the malware.
Advertising exec Tom Sharman tweeted:
WPP under cyber attack. Held to ransom and emails hacked.
To my agency friends: maybe worth changing passwords for all accounts.
An employee at the company’s London HQ said:
"We were told to turn our computers off straight away and not to use the WiFi or servers. Most people just left the building and went to the pub!"
WPP employs 205,000 across the globe.
Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Rozenko Pavlo, shared an image of his locked computer warning, revealing that all computers of the government had been hit by the virus.
It is currently unknown who is behind the hacks, but tech experts claim the screenshots uploaded to social media relate to ransomware.