There have yet to be any reports of computers in Malaysia that have fallen victim to the latest wave of cyberattacks that began yesterday, said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

However, although there are no reports of attacks in Malaysia as of 10am this morning, the commission said it is still working with other law enforcement agencies to monitor the situation.

It urged Malaysians to take preventive measures immediately.

These include to update their computer software to the latest version, and sure that all computers have anti-malware software installed.

Any vital data should be backed up into an external hard disk or cloud storage service if this has yet to be done, it said.

“At the same time, do not click on any suspicious links and report any incidents to the authorities as quickly as possible,” it added.

According to security software maker Avast, the ransomware dubbed ‘Ransom:Win32.WannaCrypt’ had affected computers in 99 countries, with Russia, Ukraine, and Taiwan being top targets.

Reuters quoted the company as saying this morning that it had observed 57,000 infections.

The ransomware affects Microsoft Windows-based computers, and reportedly spreads by exploiting a piece of code devised by the US National Security Agency (NSA) known as ‘Eternal Blue’, which was released by a group known as the ‘Shadow Brokers’.

It has released Eternal Blue as part of a trove of hacking tools that purportedly originated from the US spy agency.

Once the ransomware has infected a computer, it would encrypt all its data, and then demand payments between US$300 to US$600 to restore access to the data.

Microsoft reportedly said yesterday that it had issued a patch on March 14 that would protect against Eternal Blue, and have added the ability to detect and protect against WannaCrypt.