Tencent has announced that it has frozen a number of its Wechat accounts which have been compromosed by a new payment virus, reports thepaper.cn.

A man scans a QR code in a retail store in China. (Photo:VCG)

More than 20,000 WeChat accounts have been hit by the domestically-generated ransomware virus called "ransom virus."

The new virus is said to be similar, though less malicious, than the previous "WannaCry" virus which travelled the globe.

Rather than asking for Bitcoin, the new "ransom virus" demands Wechat users to pay 110 yuan to restore documents on Wechat, such as jpeg's and others, which are the focus of the attack by the virus.

The "ransom virus" has also targeted Taobao, Tmall, Alitalk, 163 postbox, Baidu Cloud disk, JD.com and QQ, according to a report by Huorong Security, an Internet security software company.