Yesterday it was WannaCry, today it is allegedly Petya. The arrogance of cyber gangsters seems to have no end, especially when it comes to names of their hacker creations. They have such funny names, but for the victim, laughing is the last thing on their mind.
Petya in Ukraine
Russian oil company "Rosneft" was one of the first targets. Not long after, Ukrainian Central Bank officials stated that their systems had been hacked as well. Just two days later, in Kyiv, the actions of the massive hacker attack extended its spread.
While the Central Bank officials talked about the "unknown virus", one Ukranian company revealed that this virus is in fact Petya.
Then, experts claimed that they knew the attacker. Mikko Hypponen, a Finish IT expert, found out that the name Petya is being used by the EternalBlue exploit, which has been used before by the NSA, and the U.S. Secret Service.
Petya in Western Europe
Soon, the Petya problem became international. According to The Sun, Danish shipping company Maersk, Swiss food giant Mondelez, a law office from Madrid, a marketing agency based in London, and Beiersdorph from Hamburg are all companies that reported the attacks. In the meantime, in Germany, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) reacted. They have reported that the Petya virus has been attacking the same weak spots as the virus WannaCry.
Chernobyl: Temporary disconnections of the Windows system
While the experts are analyzing the problem, the alarm comes from the place no one is eager to talk about - the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Services are now the forced to measure the amount of radiation manually because of temporary disconnections of the Windows system.
Microsoft: a free passage to Trojan viruses?
At the beginning of June, Microsoft tried to convince its users via a blog that the newest version of "Windows 10" is resistant to WannaCry virus - but only if the users update the system regularly. However, the question where Petya comes from still remains a mystery. Experts suspect North Koreans while at the same time, Ukrainians blame Russia.
Also, one company from Berlin claimed that the hackers asked the victims to pay $300 in bitcoins.
This mail was removed from the network and BSI advised victims not to transfer the money because there is nobody to guarantee that the lost data will ever be recovered. If this affects your company or your personal life, all victims should report it to the police because this is, after all, the case of digital blackmail.
