Petya it is an attack ransomware in full development at the global level, affecting many companies in many areas of Europe in the last few hours. Petya affected many banks in Ukraine, Russia, Spain, oil companies in Russia, but also many other multinational companies, with employees' computers having encrypted data and ransomware-type messages displayed on them.
Cybersecurity researchers who had access to the Petya ransomware code concluded that this was a coordinated attack against multiple companies in Russia and Ukraine. Although these two countries were most severely affected by the Petya ransomware, unfortunately, other large companies from other European countries also confirmed that their systems were penetrated.
In the case of some of the companies, Petya did not affect their daily activity, but in the case of others there are total blockages and massive data deletions follow to clean the computers. Petya is a ransomware attack that encrypts data from infected computers and demands the sum of 300 dollars to unlock them, the only alternative being the complete deletion of the data.
Petya Ransomware – Global Attack in full swing
In Russia, we are talking about oil companies such as Rosnef, one of the largest oil producers in the world, which confirmed the attack, but without impact on production, but the giant Evraz from the same country also confirmed infection with Petya. Separately, some banks in the country no longer have functional services after the Petya ransomware blocked their activity to a large extent.
In Ukraine, we are talking about Boryspyl airport, which could postpone some flights due to the Petya attack, and there, including the government network, was affected, according to the deputy prime minister. The central bank of Ukraine also confirmed the hack and together with other smaller companies, some governmental, had to partially stop their activity because of Petya.
"The company's servers underwent a powerful hacking attack. The hacking attack could lead to serious consequences, but the company has moved to a reserve production processing system and neither oil output nor refining have been stopped. In connection with the irregular situation, some flight delays are possible."
The hackers who have infected so many companies and institutions with this ransomware called Petya are demanding $300 in Bitcoin, a currency almost always used in these types of attacks. Unfortunately, the only solution for data recovery is the payment of money to the hackers who created Petya, otherwise the data from the computers is completely lost by the victims.
This is the second massive attack on an international scale, after WannaCry caused similar problems a few weeks ago, but no one prepared for Petya. There is a chance that petya will affect many other companies from other European countries, but maybe in the meantime they will be able to protect themselves.
