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'I Fear For Monday' Says Security Expert About Ransomware Cyber Attack

DETROIT (CBS DETROIT) - The Ransomware cyber attack is affecting thousands of computers and could spread more as people head back to work Monday morning.

Europol says about 200,000 organizations in 150 countries have been hit.

Former FBI Agent in Metro Detroit, Bill Kowalski, says the global 'ransomware' attack could grow much larger when people return to work tomorrow.

"It's still attacking other computers, I fear for Monday morning when businesses open and they go in and find that their systems have been under attack and more demands for money will occurr from the bad guys that have institutied this," said Kowalski who is a cyber security expert with Rehmann Group in Troy.

Speaking live on WWJ, Kowalski also said the attack isn't focused on any specific industry:

"Today's money is not so much in robbing banks or doing things like that. today's money is in the cyber world," say Bill Kowalski. "This is how you get it and they've been very successful at it. It's fastest growing cyber crime that we've seen over the past five years -- politically though -- we still have to be very aware of the digital risks in that companies and terrorists groups and other groups are doing everything they can to attack our infrastructure digitally.

"This is probably the most massive attack we've ever seen - in that there is no particular industry or business; we've seen attacks in the healthcare industry - we're seen them in the academic institutions and obviously attacks in government, but this one is fairly widespread."

Kowalski says home computers likely won't be targeted because most people wouldn't pay the $300 ransom, but instead just wipe their computers clean and start over.

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