BG Staff
Recently a virus spread to more than 60 states that created havoc on firms around the globe. The increase in the cyber-attack has knocked many businesses and has made many official computer networks offline. The attack also disrupted ports from Mumbai to Los Angeles and ceased work at a chocolate factory in Australia.
According to reports, the economic losses have reached up to $8 billion from a virus dubbed WannaCry. It is getting this much attention as the system is down and is generating less revenue. This recent virus is being called as GoldenEye or Petya and started spreading on Tuesday in Ukraine. The virus infected the machines of a local news site and the computers downloading tainted updates of a popular tax accounting package. Also, it caused congestion at some of the 76 ports around the world around the world. The malicious code was able to encrypt data on the machines and demanded victims’ $300 ransoms for getting a recovery of their accounts. But according to experts, the basic purpose was to disrupt the computer systems across Ukraine. The attackers had no intention of attaining money from this attack instead it looked like a state operating through a proxy.
Eternal Blue:
Some of the experts believe that the malware leveraging code as eternal blue has been created by the U.S. National Security Agency. It is considered to a part of the hacking tool that was stolen from NSA to be leaked online in April by a group that was believed to be linked to the Russian Government. The U.S. representative contacted for the NSA to disclose any kind of information that may lead to Eternal Blue for stopping the attacks. Although the agency has not yet responded yet and has neither acknowledged that it is involved in developing the hacking tools by the group named as Shadow Brokers.
Currently, there are only accusations that are being linked to the attack but these are providing not any solution for solving the issue. The victims of the attack were the international firms that have been operational in Ukraine which include the French construction materials company Saint-Gobain, BNP Paribas Real Estate, and Mondelez International Inc.
Via: Reuters
