Ransomware continues to be big business for cyber criminals and a big headache for business, the chief technology officer of a major security firm says, adding that Europol's 2018 Internet Organised Threat Assessment had estimated that US$5 billion was drained from the global economy each year due to this scourge.

Global security firm Prosegur has been hit by a Windows ransomware attack and has shut down at least a part of its network, the company announced on Wednesday.

Last week, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella visited Australia and it is fair to say that he received such a lot of puffs in the media that he could well have thought he had landed in a bakery.