Microsoft’s boss says governments need to “adhere in cyberspace to the same rules applied to weapons in the physical world”.
The software giant compared the severity of the attack with “the US military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen”.
The malicious software – known as WannaCrypt or WannaCry – is widely believed to have been developed as a hacking tool by the US National Security Agency.
The cyberattack, which began in London Friday morning, has so far affected 150 countries and locked 200,000 computers.
So far only $32,500 has so far been paid to the attackers in the requested anonymous bitcoin currency.
However, it is believed the amount will increase as victims rush to pay ransoms of $300 (£230) or more ahead of deadlines to restore access.
The full cost of the attack and associated computer outages is not yet known, but is currently being estimated in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars.
In a blog post, released by Microsoft on Sunday, they called the attack a “wake-up call” and identified “nation-state action and organised criminal action” as “the two most serious forms of cybersecurity threats in the world today”.
The company said they had released a security update back in March to protect Window system computers against such attacks, but said many computers “remained unpatched globally”.
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They released a further patch on Friday in an attempt to stop the massive ransomeware worm from spreading across networks.
Hospitals, oil companies, banks and other organisations have been affected around the world, with many fearing a repeat of the cyberattack chaos on Monday, as people return to work.
Emergency meetings have been held in the US to assess the threat posed by the global attack.
There are also concerns that Asia is yet to feel the full force of the ransomeware, with the extent of the damage to become apparent as Monday progresses.
Countries so far hit by the attack include the UK, US, Spain, Ukraine, France, Russia, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, India, Sweden and Norway.
