French agency warns of more cyber attacks after Renault, others

PARIS (Reuters) - French government cyber security agency ANSSI said on Monday carmaker Renault was not the only entity hit by the ransomware cyber attack at the end of last week and warned of other possible attacks soon.

"There are others," Guillaume Poupard, head of the agency, ANSSI, said. The government body was working with the victims on recovery.

Businesses around the world scrambled on Saturday to prepare for a renewed cyber attack, convinced that a lull in a computer offensive that has stopped car factories, hospitals, schools and other organizations in around 100 countries was only temporary.

The pace of the attack by a destructive virus dubbed WannaCry slowed late on Friday, after the so-called "ransomware" locked up more than 100,000 computers, demanding owners pay to $300 to $600 get their data back.

"We should expect similar attacks regularly in the coming days and weeks," Poupard said. "Attackers update their software ... other attackers will learn from the method and will carry out attacks".

French carmaker Renault stopped production at several sites on Saturday to prevent the spread of a global cyber attack that hit its computer systems.

(Reporting by Yann Le Guernigou and Maya Nikolaeva; Editing by Brian Love)