[2017-06-27] WannaCry Some More? Petya Bitcoin Ransomware Attacks

[elenabaltadzi]

A new virus displaying behavior markedly similar to WannaCry is attacking Russian and Ukrainian company computers.

According to local reports, the Petya virus is locking computers and demanding payment of a $300 ransom in Bitcoins to regain control.

“It blocks computers and demands $300 in bitcoins,” specialist Group-IB stated to RIA Novosti.

“The attack happened from around 2pm. Judging from photographs, it is the cryptolocker [ransomware] Petya. The way it is spreading through local networks is similar to the WannaCry virus.”

WannaCry’s Bitcoin ransomware demands caused havoc worldwide in May after employees were locked out of computers in a range of locations.

The attack exposed antiquated equipment and lax security commonplace in many major corporate and public sector computer networks, with victims such as the UK National Health Service particularly vulnerable due to the extensive use of unsupported Windows XP software.

Even India’s ATM network was feared to be a likely target.

Petya has already claimed major Russian prizes such as gas giants, as well as Ukrainian postal service Novaya Pochta.

The company stated in a Facebook post that it was temporarily unable to service customer requests due to the Petya attack.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/wannacry-some-more-petya-bitcoin-ransomware-attacks

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[richardsNY]

It today was big news, once again. I must however state that they haven't gone nuts on Bitcoin like they did with WannaCry. I seriously don't get why after WannaCry businesses haven't taken the necessary steps to tighten their overall IT security.... I understand that it takes a decent bit of money to have fresh Windows versions running on every system, but the costs don't outweigh the negative consequences.

Depending on where you buy it from, Windows 10 home will do $130 and the pro version $250. If you want to do it the cheap way, then go for Windows 7. Paying ransom to a bunch of low life thieves is never a solution as it will only give them more incentive to continue their nasty practices....

[Baofeng]

I guess those affected now didn't learn from the WannaCry virus attack. Did not upgrade their PC's and their servers to protect from this kind of attack. I hope they have a backup and be able to restore everything and not paid this low life hackers.

[1Referee]

I seriously don't get why after WannaCry businesses haven't taken the necessary steps to tighten their overall IT security....

I can't seem to understand it either. It has been pointed out in the news that various large businesses are losing over a million per day, due to them not being able to operate properly, and thus had to halt various sections of their business. Let's pretend they have like 1000 desktops/servers running in total, I am sure they would get a decent bulk discount, it would likely cost them less than $200K on new operating systems. Also let's put another $20K on top of that for the extra effort that the IT people have to do, and you could have prevented these massive losses easily. Just wait for another attack, businesses will never learn...

[Zicadis]

I just heard about this Ransomware Attacks on BBC which is unfortunate for our affected friends and they said its believed the attack was initially initiated from Ukraine and has affected several computers in about 60 countries for now, which has also seen airports in Ukraine resort to manual operations like checking boarding times as their FIDS are offline and for other companies that were prepared for this kind of cyber attack they have switched to their backup systems to go on with their business.

[richardsNY]

Just wait for another attack, businesses will never learn...

If they keep going on with cutting costs, then it will surely continue forming a problem in the future. I even sense some sort of arrogance in the way that they believe these attacks will run past them.... In the example you mentioned it shows that cutting costs on IT doesn't help at all. Saving a few hundred $k at first, to swallow millions in losses later, great cutting cost policy!

[AgonyPaid]

Just wait for another attack, businesses will never learn...

If they keep going on with cutting costs, then it will surely continue forming a problem in the future. I even sense some sort of arrogance in the way that they believe these attacks will run past them.... In the example you mentioned it shows that cutting costs on IT doesn't help at all. Saving a few hundred $k at first, to swallow millions in losses later, great cutting cost policy!

In countries where this virus began to spread (Ukraine and Russia), equipment in public sector facilities is in very poor condition. This is very sad to say, but it's true. Unfortunately, outdated equipment is more susceptible to a virus attack. And in the budge there is no money to replace such equipment

[richardsNY]

Just wait for another attack, businesses will never learn...

If they keep going on with cutting costs, then it will surely continue forming a problem in the future. I even sense some sort of arrogance in the way that they believe these attacks will run past them.... In the example you mentioned it shows that cutting costs on IT doesn't help at all. Saving a few hundred $k at first, to swallow millions in losses later, great cutting cost policy!

In countries where this virus began to spread (Ukraine and Russia), equipment in public sector facilities is in very poor condition. This is very sad to say, but it's true. Unfortunately, outdated equipment is more susceptible to a virus attack. And in the budge there is no money to replace such equipment

If there is no money, then they have to keep swallowing these losses in the future. One way or another, you can put some effort into finding free alternatives, that in most cases are widely available in form of open source software. I am running a full ubuntu setup as secondary system, and it happens to work flawlessly, definitely an option to consider if there aren't any solid financial resources available.

[veleten]

funnily enough,despite both Ukraine and Russia being attacked by Petya
ukrainian oficials are blaming Russia for the attack,claiming that it was just masquerading as a ransomware
but in reality it was a clever ploy to destroy ukrainian infrastructure and networks by the russian special agencies
well,I would take anything ukrainian goverment say about russians with a pinch of salt,though,they blame Putin even for the footbal fan fights nowadays 

[yakushev]

funnily enough,despite both Ukraine and Russia being attacked by Petya
ukrainian oficials are blaming Russia for the attack,claiming that it was just masquerading as a ransomware
but in reality it was a clever ploy to destroy ukrainian infrastructure and networks by the russian special agencies
well,I would take anything ukrainian goverment say about russians with a pinch of salt,though,they blame Putin even for the footbal fan fights nowadays 

The government is setting up these two nations against each other. So sometimes in the media you can find very stupid charges. But I'm sure that the virus has nothing to do with the political wars between these countries