PARIS (AFP/REUTERS) - A huge range of organisations around the world have been affected by the WannaCry ransomware cyber attack, described by the EU's law enforcement agency as "unprecedented".

Here are some of the most prominent victims, from Britain's National Health Service (NHS) to French carmaker Renault and the Russian interior ministry.

NHS

The British public health service - the world's fifth-largest employer, with 1.7 million staff - was badly hit, with interior minister Amber Rudd saying around 45 facilities were affected. Several were forced to cancel or delay treatment for patients.

Pictures on social media showed screens of NHS computers with images demanding payment of $300 (S$420) in the virtual currency Bitcoin, saying: "Ooops, your files have been encrypted!" .

Renault

The French automobile giant was hit, forcing it to halt production at sites in France and its factory in Slovenia as part of measures to stop the spread of the virus.

Nissan Sunderland Park

The worldwide ransom attack has affected production at car firm Nissan's Sunderland plant in Britain, spokeswoman Lucy Banwell said. The situation at the plant is currently being monitored, but in line with normal weekend procedures no car production was taking place.

Russian banks and ministries

Russia's central bank was targeted, along with several government ministries and the railway system. The interior ministry said 1,000 of its computers were hit by a virus. Officials played down the incident, saying the attacks had been contained.

German railways

Germany's Deutsche Bahn national railway operator was affected, with information screens and ticket machines hit. Travelers tweeted pictures of hijacked departure boards showing the ransom demand instead of train times. But the company insisted that trains were running as normal.

Fedex

The US package delivery group acknowledged it had been hit by malware and said it was "implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible." .

Telefonica

The Spanish telephone giant said it was attacked but "the infected equipment is under control and being reinstalled," said Chema Alonso, the head of the company's cyber security unit and a former hacker.

Swedish engineering firm Sandvik

Computers handling both administration and production were hit in a number of countries where the company operates, with some production forced to stop. "In some cases the effects were small, in others they were a little larger," Head of External Communications Par Altan said.

"In some cases, certain production has been affected. Certain, but far from all of it." Altan would not say which countries had been affected or give further details on the impact on production. He said Sandvik was now assessing the situation.

Schools in China and The Philippines

Sun Yat-sen University in China received a large number of virus complaints on Friday, the Chinese financial magazine Caixin reported on Saturday, citing a notice circulated by the university's IT department.

Two major Indonesian hospitals

Dharmais Hospital and Harapan Kita Hospital in Jakarta have been affected by the ransomware.

Cyber extortionists tricked victims into opening attachments and spam emails that appeared to contain invoices, job offers, security warnings and other legitimate files.

The ransomware encrypted data on the computers, demanding payments to restore access.

Portugal Telcom

Portugal Telcom was hit on Friday (May 12) by a cyber attack, but no services were disrupted. A spokesman at Portugal's judicial police said he had no information on the cyber attacks. As a precaution, energy firm Energias de Portugal, Portugal's largest company, cut access to the internet on its network.