Global "Pertwrap" cyberattack is "unprecedented"
The Paris public prosecutor's office opened an investigation in France, while many companies, including Saint-Gobain and SNCF, were affected.
The global cyberattack which has hit the whole of Europe and is spreading to the United States is of an "unprecedented" level, French Secretary of State for Digital Mounir Mahjoubi said on Tuesday during a visit At New York. "The level of this attack is unprecedented," Mounir Mahjoubi said in English during a meeting with journalists on the sidelines of a "French Touch" summit intended to highlight the attractiveness of France, in particular in the digital field.
"The attack that the world is experiencing right now is an industrialized and automated attack that is based on a very, very intelligent analysis of networks to detect existing weaknesses," said the secretary of state. The 33-year-old secretary of state also praised the strength of the French internet: "the most important companies and the most important public services are protected by high-level systems", he declared. .
Attack "contained" against the SNCF
The SNCF railway group is one of the entities undergoing the cyberattack in progress, but it is "contained", a spokesperson said on Tuesday, while the distributor Auchan also announced that it had been affected. A massive wave of cyberattacks reminiscent of how the WannaCry virus operated in May hit major businesses and government structures in Ukraine and Russia simultaneously on Tuesday and appeared to be spreading to the rest of the world.
No official link was made Tuesday between these apparently simultaneous attacks, but information reported by several companies reported a virus claiming a ransom demand of 300 dollars on their computers. Several cybersecurity specialists have designated the virus responsible as "Petrwrap", a modified version of the "ransonware" (rational) Petya that had hit last year. Beyond the borders of Ukraine and Russia, some multinationals have reported being targeted by attacks, such as the Danish maritime giant Maersk, the French group of building materials Saint-Gobain or the British advertising group WPP. The virus "spreads around the world, a large number of countries are affected," warned Twitter Costin Raiu, researcher of the Russian laboratory Kaspersky.
Metro and airport
Because of this attack, passengers in the Kiev metro could not pay by credit card, the billboards of Kiev airport were no longer working and Ukrainian banks had to pause some of the services offered to their customers. In Russia, Rosneft, one of the largest oil producers in the world, said it was the victim of a "powerful attack", but assured that its production had not been interrupted by a backup server. Steelmaker Evraz also suffered an attack, a spokesman told RIA-Novosti. According to the company specializing in IT security Group-IB, "about 80 companies have been targeted" in Russia and Ukraine. Among them, Rosneft and big Ukrainian banks, but also Mars, Nivea, Auchan and Ukrainian government structures.
This would be the consequences of a "newly modified version" of the Petya virus called Petrwrap, according to the same source. The 12 May, another warehouse, "Wannacry", had affected hundreds of thousands of computers around the world, paralyzing in particular the British health services and factories of the French car manufacturer Renault. Its authors demanded a ransom to unblock the devices. US-based Symantec antivirus publisher had blamed the hacker group Lazarus, allegedly linked to North Korea. Pyongyang had denied any connection with this massive computer attack that infected hundreds of thousands of computers.
Financial markets
In a statement, the central bank of Ukraine said it had "reported to banks and other financial market agents an external computer attack against Ukrainian banks and public and commercial enterprises today". As a result of these attacks, "the banks are struggling to take care of their customers and to do banking," added the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). Oschadbank said in a statement "to be forced to use limited services for its customers". The site of the Ukrainian government was also experiencing difficulties in the afternoon. The Kiev metro indicated on its Facebook page that it could not accept credit card payments at its counters because of a "cyberattack". The official website and, with the exception of one, the display panels of flights from Borispol airport in Kiev "no longer work", said the airport management on its Facebook page, Due to these malfunctions, flights could be delayed.
In France, the official Saint-Gobain sites were not accessible. "Saint-Gobain was the subject of a cyber attack. As a security measure, in order to protect our data we have isolated our computer systems. It is being resolved, "said a spokesman for the French materials group at Agence France-Presse, without being able to give more information in the near future. "Most of our computer systems are down in our subsidiaries because of a virus," said a spokesman for the Danish maritime and oil group AP Moeller-Maersk Concepción Boo Arias.
http://www.lepoint.fr/high-tech-interne ... 741_47.php