‘Petya’ ransomware to expand from Europe to the world…Russian Nuclear Power Plant under attack
Lee Gyung Tak | kt87@ | 2017-06-29 10:16:09
The so called `Petya Ransomware` cyber attack, focusing on Europe, is now expanding throughout the world.
According to foreign press sources including Reuters on June 27 (local time), Ukrainian government ministries, banks and corporate computer networks have been attacked by Petya Ransomware. Petya, like Ransomware, which swept the world last month, is infecting PCs through a Windows operating system`s SMB (file share) vulnerability and is asking for a USD 300 (KRW 340k won) bitcoin.
Petya has attacked European corporate and government systems such as Britain, France, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Spain and the United States with malware similar to Ransomware `WannaCry`, which terrorized the world last month. The attack resulted in a system failure or shutdown of the Ukrainian government, Kyiv Borispol International Airport, some state-owned banks, including the Ukrainian central bank, and power and telecommunications companies such as UKR Energo and UKR Telecom. Especially, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was also turned into a manual system for monitoring the radioactivity of nuclear power plants.
Russia`s largest state oil company, ROS Neft, the Russian central bank, and the steel company Yebraz have been attacked by Petya. Besides, the Danish shipping company Maersk also stopped operation of 17 container terminals and confirmed that the multinational company headquartered in Germany was attacked by Ransomware. Europe, including WPP, the world`s largest advertising company in the UK, France`s building materials and glass manufacturing company were the starting point of the Ramsomware attack.
According to Bloomberg, Petya is expanding to Asia. Petya has attacked the largest terminal in India. The gateway terminals located in the Mumbai area cannot load or unload cargo at this time and cannot even identify the cargo. The attack of Petya was also detected in China. Jong Won-bin, Vaccine company representative said, "There are signs that the virus has started spreading to China, but no large-scale cases have been detected.”
According to security companies Kaspersky Lab and FireAye, approximately 2000 users were attacked and virus detected in 10 countries including Australia, the United States, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Ukraine, India, Denmark and Spain. Among them, Russia and Ukraine were the most attacked.
Jon Su-hong, head of Aspire Korea branch stated, "This shows that cyber attackers are now attacking the entire world, not a specific area. International cooperation is now more important than ever."
Meanwhile, according to the Korea Internet Development Agency (KISA), there is no official attack report reported at 4 pm in Korea. Merck`s domestic branch office, MSD Korea, is also known to have been infected with internal hacking. However, it is unclear whether the attack is a Petya Ransomware or not.
By Lee Gyung Tak kt87@
[ copyright ⓒ The Digitaltimes ]
According to foreign press sources including Reuters on June 27 (local time), Ukrainian government ministries, banks and corporate computer networks have been attacked by Petya Ransomware. Petya, like Ransomware, which swept the world last month, is infecting PCs through a Windows operating system`s SMB (file share) vulnerability and is asking for a USD 300 (KRW 340k won) bitcoin.
Petya has attacked European corporate and government systems such as Britain, France, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Spain and the United States with malware similar to Ransomware `WannaCry`, which terrorized the world last month. The attack resulted in a system failure or shutdown of the Ukrainian government, Kyiv Borispol International Airport, some state-owned banks, including the Ukrainian central bank, and power and telecommunications companies such as UKR Energo and UKR Telecom. Especially, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was also turned into a manual system for monitoring the radioactivity of nuclear power plants.
Russia`s largest state oil company, ROS Neft, the Russian central bank, and the steel company Yebraz have been attacked by Petya. Besides, the Danish shipping company Maersk also stopped operation of 17 container terminals and confirmed that the multinational company headquartered in Germany was attacked by Ransomware. Europe, including WPP, the world`s largest advertising company in the UK, France`s building materials and glass manufacturing company were the starting point of the Ramsomware attack.
According to Bloomberg, Petya is expanding to Asia. Petya has attacked the largest terminal in India. The gateway terminals located in the Mumbai area cannot load or unload cargo at this time and cannot even identify the cargo. The attack of Petya was also detected in China. Jong Won-bin, Vaccine company representative said, "There are signs that the virus has started spreading to China, but no large-scale cases have been detected.”
According to security companies Kaspersky Lab and FireAye, approximately 2000 users were attacked and virus detected in 10 countries including Australia, the United States, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Ukraine, India, Denmark and Spain. Among them, Russia and Ukraine were the most attacked.
Jon Su-hong, head of Aspire Korea branch stated, "This shows that cyber attackers are now attacking the entire world, not a specific area. International cooperation is now more important than ever."
Meanwhile, according to the Korea Internet Development Agency (KISA), there is no official attack report reported at 4 pm in Korea. Merck`s domestic branch office, MSD Korea, is also known to have been infected with internal hacking. However, it is unclear whether the attack is a Petya Ransomware or not.
By Lee Gyung Tak kt87@