New Global Cyber Attack: Petya Ransomware Hits Again Global Companies—Ukraine And Russia affected the Most
Global Ransomware has started hitting the major global companies again, Various Companies including Danish A.P. Moller-Maersk, Russian Rosneft, EVRAZ, TNT Express Netherlands, Britian’s WPP, French Gobain, DLA Piper, Mondelez International and many more became the victim.
Moller-Maersk a well known global shipping company called it a global attack when their computers got affected by WannaCry Ransomware on Tuesday. The company has tweeted about the fresh episode of cyber attack and said, “We confirm some Maersk IT systems are down. The safety of our customers’ business and our people is our top priority. Updates to follow.”
However, the companies spokesperson said, “We confirm that the breakdown was caused by global cyber attack”
https://twitter.com/MaerskLine/status/879677378758402048
Maersk reported that the source of cyber attack is unknown but it could be global. Some companies has classed this attack as previous attack Petya Ransomware but Kaspersky see this attack as a new one which resembles with Petya. Kaspersky said its not Petya. The company says they have also detected subsequent attacks in Germany, Poland, France and Italy after hitting UK, Russia and Ukraine, according to BBC.
But Symantec sees it as Petya Ransomware attack in a tweet Edward Snowden mentions this.
Symantec confirms global #Petya ransomware attack hitting computers today (hospitals, supermarkets, banks) uses NSA's #ETERNALBLUE exploit. pic.twitter.com/wDuHoRcFCr
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) June 27, 2017
Russia’s largest and global oil company Rosneft reported massive cyber attack which paralyzed their servers; the company added that the oil production was not affected though.
EVRAZ the international mining and steel firm also became the victim of these attacks, “The information systems are under attack, the main production of the company continues to operate, no threats to safety of the company and employees” said the company in a statement.
TNT Express also informed Reuters that the company’s system got affected by malware.
Ukraine was among the most affected countries by this new wave of attacks, in Ukraine the government organizations, airports, banks and business enterprises are all at stake.
The attack threatened the affected computers to pay $300 of ransom in bitcoin in order to release the system and prevent the loss of data.
BBC also reported the news from a cyber security firm spokesperson who witnessed a payment as a result of this attack, he informed BBC that, “a Korean Hosting Firm Just paid $1 million to get their data back, it’s the biggest offer you could make to a cyber-criminal”
The largest global advertising agency WPP reported that their systems are compromised too, the company website was down and the spokesperson didn’t disclose further details.
Europe was not safe from these attacks either, as the attack started sneaking into European firms, Saint Gobain, French Construction Company told Reuters, “As a security measure and protection of our data, we have isolated our computer systems”
BSI Germany’s federal security called upon firms to report any unfortunate incidents and do not pay any ransom in panic.
DLA Piper a global law firm also witnessed their computers lockdown with the attack, Mondelez International tweeted IT breakdown but the company wasn’t sure it was a global cyber attack which affected their systems.
Our network is currently experiencing an IT outage. We're working to resolve the situation ASAP. https://t.co/hAvAexPeBi
— Mondelēz Intl (@MDLZ) June 27, 2017
US pharmaceutical company Merck was yet another victim of this global disaster, Forbes reported that Merck’s offices around the globe including Ukraine and Ireland were hit by the attack.
We confirm our company's computer network was compromised today as part of global hack. Other organizations have also been affected (1 of 2)
— Merck (@Merck) June 27, 2017
Last month, WannaCry Ransomware attack infected more than 200,000 computers worldwide. This is the second time the virus has affected at large scale in a short period of time, as Kaspersky insisted, this is not the similar virus in the previous episode, the new attack is more sophisticated which exploited other techniques to break into the global computers. Still it is not confirmed what is the nature and origin of this attack.
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