A new ransomware called "Petya" attacked several websites of large companies, in recent months the WannaCry ransomware attack, created havoc on more than 300,000 computers throughout the world. Petya is believed to be connected to the same kind of hacking tools than WanaCry.
Petya has already taken thousands of computers hostage, impacting companies and their infrastructures which range from Ukraine to the United States back to India. This has impacted the Ukrainian international airport, and multinational shipping, legal and advertising firms. This has led to the discontinuation of radiation monitoring systems at the Chernobyl nuclear facilities.
Europol, the international force of law, was unable to provide operational data related to this attack, his spokesperson Tine hollevoet He said he was trying to "get a full picture of the attack" from his industry and his law enforcement partners.
Petya "is a demonstration of how cybercrime can evolve and grow, and once again, it is a reminder of the business and the importance of cybersecurity," said the executive director of the Europol Rob Wainwright.
Different from WannacryPetya's attack does not include any kind of "kill switch," according to Europol.
The United States emergency computer reading team began receiving numerous reports of Petya infecting computers around the world, and they have noted that this particular variant encrypts computers' Windows records and exploits the vulnerability of their message server.
The RAMSON_PETYA.SMA uses different variants of infection in the vectors of infected computers, which was also used in the wannaCry attack, and in the PsExec tool, which is a Microsoft utility that is used to run processes using remote access.