Cyber-attack targeted data

Thursday, 29 June 2017

Cyber-attack was destroy mission

BBC reports that the Petya malware variant that hit businesses around the world was probably targeting data to destroy.

The aggressive program is now thought to have been launched in order to destroy and damage data.

Anton Ivanov and Orkhan Mamedov from Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab agreed that the program was built to destroy rather than generate funds.

'It appears it was designed as a wiper pretending to be ransomware,' they said. This means that there is no way for victims to get data back even if they pay a ransom.

More than 64 countries have seen companies targeted by the malware, with a spokesman for the Ukraine government blaming Russia for the attack.

Computer security researcher Lesley Carhart said that the way the malware spread after avoiding digital defences was previously unseen. 'I'm honestly a little surprised we haven't seen worms taking advantage of these mechanisms so elegantly on a large scale until now,' she said. 'Things are going to get worse and the attack landscape is going to deteriorate'.