150 Countries that were affected by the Wannacry ransomware
Nato says cyberattacks a call to arms
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg warned the alliance must step up its defence against cyberattacks, saying they could potentially trigger their Article 5 mutual defence commitment. Computer users around the world were scrambling yesterday to reboot systems after a tidal wave of ransomware cyberattacks spread from Ukraine and Russia across Europe to the United States and then on to Asia. It seemed to be very similar to the WannaCry ransomware which hit more than 200,000 users in more than 150 countries last month. Stoltenberg said the “attack in May and this week just underlines the importance of strengthening our cyber defences and that is what we are doing.” “We exercise more, we share best practices and technology and we also work more and more closely with all allies,” he told reporters ahead of a Nato defence ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday at which cyber-security will be a key talking point. Stoltenberg recalled that Nato leaders had agreed last year that a cyber attack could be considered a threat sufficiently serious to warrant invoking the alliance’s ‘all for one, one for all’ security guarantee. They also made cyber a Nato domain — on a par with the traditional air, sea and land arms to become part of overall alliance planning and resource allocation. Nato was also helping Ukraine, the country first hit by Tuesday’s cyberattack, with its online defences, Stoltenberg said.
Kaspersky says cyberattack involved new malware
Kaspersky Lab says a massive cyberattack that has locked computers across the world involved a new malware. The company said that its preliminary findings suggest that it is not a variant of Petya ransomware, but a new ransomware. It named it ExPetr, noting that “while it has several strings similar to Petya, it possesses entirely different functionality.” The company’s telemetry data indicates around 2,000 attacked users so far. It added that organisations in Russia and Ukraine were the most affected, and hits were also registered in Poland, Italy, the UK, Germany, France, the US and several other countries. It added that the cyberattack involved modified EternalBlue and EternalRomance exploits. According to networking and security major Cisco, the computer virus is a new variant of ransomware called Nyetya — WannaCry’s bad cousin — according to networking and security major Cisco.
India’s GST network safe from malware attack
As India gears up to kick off GST from July 1, GST Network yesterday sought to calm nerves in the wake of the cyber attack, saying its operations have not been affected. GSTN Chief Executive Prakash Kumar said it has taken all necessary precautions to prevent such ransomware attacks. With just two days left for the roll-out of the biggest tax reform since Independence, Kumar assured stakeholders full safety of data. Under the new indirect tax regime GST, GSTN will be handling the mammoth IT back office and storing data of over 3 billion invoices per month. “Our system is run on Linux software and all data are safe and operations are going on smoothly,” Kumar said.