Recently world suffered a massive WannaCry attack. Now new ransomware attack was launched using same Windows vulnerability. Ukraine is the most affected country affecting government, transport systems, banks and power utilities and companies like WPP, pharma giant Merck, manufacturing company Saint-Gobain, and Russian steel and oil giants Evraz and Rosneft.
One WPP subsidiary has asked staff to turn off and disconnect all Windows machines as it was a victim of “massive global malware attack, affecting all Windows servers, PCs and laptops.”
Shipping company Maersk tweeted, “We can confirm that Maersk IT systems are down across multiple sites and business units due to a cyber attack. We continue to assess the situation. The safety of our employees, our operations and customers’ business is our top priority.”
Merck tweeted “We can confirm our company’s computer network was compromised today as part of the global hack. Other organizations have also been affected. We are investigating the matter and will provide additional information as we learn more.”
Kaspersky Lab researchers mentioned that it is entirely new threat and named it as NotPetya.
“Organizations in Russia and the Ukraine are the most affected, and we have also registered hits in Poland, Italy, the UK, Germany, France, the U.S. and several other countries,” the researchers mentioned. ”This appears to be a complex attack which involves several attack vectors. We can confirm that a modified EternalBlue exploit is used for propagation at least within the corporate network.”
Jake Kouns, CISO at Risk Based Security mentioned that the attack by WannaCry should have been taken seriously. “Unfortunately, the fast spread of Petya makes it pretty clear that regardless of the reasons for not updating systems, whether they were valid or not, many companies were unable to properly address things the first time around,” he said.
He added that unpatched software is at risk.
“It is critical that all organizations which are able to apply patches for these known vulnerabilities,” he said. “If there is some legit reason for this not being possible, it is imperative to take other precautions and implement compensating controls to protect their systems and mitigate the risk.”
“Companies need to rapidly adopt a much more continuous strategy around patching and security testing, along with a robust disaster recovery plan that gets tested frequently.”Cybric CTO Mike Kail mentioned.
Netskope co-founder and CEO Sanjay Beri said the implications could be massive. “The Petya ransomware attack should serve as an urgent warning for the U.S. — we need a plan in place and the administration has to stop dragging its feet on hiring a Federal CISO,” he said.
“Worse than the recent WannaCry attack, the Petya ransomware campaign is targeting critical infrastructure which, according to an MIT report, is essentially defenseless against cyber criminals,” Beri added. “If this attack reaches us — and given the rate and manner with which it’s spreading it’s only a matter of time — the country’s critical infrastructure is at enormous risk of shutting down.”
“The extortion model is here to stay,” the report states. “More stable growth, which is at a higher level on average, could indicate an alarming trend: a shift from chaotic and sporadic actors’ attempts to gain foothold in [the] threat landscape to steadier and higher volumes.”
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