Britain on Friday blamed North Korea for a ransomware attack this year that a new report revealed affected a third of English hospitals and could have been prevented with “basic” IT security.

“This attack, we believe quite strongly that it came from a foreign state,” Ben Wallace, a junior minister for security, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“North Korea was the state that we believe was involved in this worldwide attack,” he said, adding that the government was “as sure as possible”.