Petya - Another wave of ransomeware
Many organizations in Europe and the US have been crippled by a ransomware attack dubbed “Petya”. The malicious software has spread through large firms including the advertiser WPP, food company Mondelez, legal firm DLA Piper and Danish shipping and transport firm Maersk, leading to PCs and data being locked up and held for ransom.
It’s the second major global ransomware attack in the last two months. In early May, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) was among the organizations infected by WannaCry, which used a vulnerability first revealed to the public as part of a leaked stash of NSA-related documents released online in April by a hacker group calling itself the Shadow Brokers.
The Petya ransomware takes over computers and demands $300, paid in Bitcoin. The malicious software spreads rapidly across an organization once a computer is infected using the EternalBlue vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (Microsoft has released a patch, but not everyone will have installed it) or through two Windows administrative tools. The malware tries one option and if it doesn’t work, it tries the next one. “It has a better mechanism for spreading itself than WannaCry”, said Ryan Kalember from cybersecurity company Proofpoint.
The “Petya” ransomware has caused serious disruption at large firms in Europe and the US, including the advertising firm WPP, French construction materials company Saint-Gobain and Russian steel and oil firms Evraz and Rosneft. The food company Mondelez, legal firm DLA Piper, Danish shipping and transport firm AP Moller-Maersk and Heritage Valley Health System, which runs hospitals and care facilities in Pittsburgh, also said their systems had been hit by the malware.
News Source: Here
I was wondering it these viruses are made by a private group of people or the governement itself?have you ever thought of that?
To be honest, there are a few "suspects" that I have in mind. The first suspect that comes into my mind is North Korea, thats because of the recent tension between USA and NK. The second suspect would be ISIS, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't attack us only in the physical world. I mean there are some hacking groups that are from ISIS so I wouldn't be surprised if this attack originated from them. Although it isn't likely, there's a possibility that it be a Russian hack, since it was first targeted in Ukraine and then to USA.