Global businesses dig out
from latest cyber attack
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[June 28, 2017]
By Eric Auchard and Jack Stubbs
FRANKFURT/
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A major cyber
attack, believed to have first struck Ukraine, caused havoc around the
world on Wednesday, crippling computers or halting operations at port
operator Maersk, a Cadbury chocolate plant in Australia and the property
arm of French bank BNP Paribas.
Russia's biggest oil company, Ukrainian banks and multinational firms
were among those hit on Tuesday by the cyber extortion campaign, which
has underscored growing concerns that businesses have failed to secure
their networks from increasingly aggressive hackers.
The rapidly spreading computer worm appeared to be a variant of an
existing ransomware family known as Petya which also has borrowed key
features from last month's ransomware attack, named "WannaCry".
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ESET, an anti-virus vendor based in Bratislava, said 80 percent of all
infections from the new attack detected among its global customer base
were in Ukraine, with Italy second hardest hit at around 10 percent.
Several of the international firms hit had operations in Ukraine.
Shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk <MAERSKb.CO>, which handles one in
seven containers shipped worldwide and has a logistics unit in Ukraine,
is not able to process new orders after being hit by the attack on
Tuesday, it told Reuters.
"Right now, at this hour, we're not able to take new orders," Maersk
Line Chief Commercial Officer Vincent Clerc said in a telephone
interview on Wednesday.
BNP Paribas Real Estate <BNPP.PA>, which provides property and
investment management services, confirmed it had been hit but declined
to specify how widely it had affected its business. It employed nearly
3,500 staff in 16 countries as of last year.
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Passengers get
registered at Kiev's main airport, Boryspil, in Ukraine, January 18,
2015. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
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"The international cyber attack hit our non-bank subsidiary, Real Estate. The
necessary measures have been taken to rapidly contain the attack," the bank told
Reuters on Wednesday, after a person familiar with the matter had said that some
staff computers were blocked on Tuesday due to the incident.
Production at the Cadbury factory on the island state of Tasmania ground to a
halt late on Tuesday after computer systems went down, said Australian
Manufacturing and Workers Union state secretary John Short.
Russia's Rosneft, one of the world's biggest crude producers by volume, said on
Tuesday its systems had suffered "serious consequences" but said oil production
had not been affected because it switched over to backup systems.
The virus crippled computers running Microsoft Corp's <MSFT.O> Windows by
encrypting hard drives and overwriting files, then demanded $300 in bitcoin
payments to restore access.
Several security experts questioned whether the effort to extort victims with
computers hit by the virus was the main goal, or whether the unknown hackers
behind the attack could have other motives.
(Reporting by Eric Auchard; Editing by Adrian Croft)
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