Breaking: Petya Ransomware Creates Global Chaos

New Cyberattack Spreads Across Europe, Russia and U.S.

A devastating and well-coordinated ransomware attack hit key parts of Ukraine’s infrastructure Tuesday. The ransomware called Petya is now being reported worldwide, spreading throughout Europe, Russia and the United States. This attack follows the global WannaCry outbreak that struck in May. Petya includes elements that make it even more severe than the WannaCry attack. It can inflict more damage on machines than WannaCry by targeting the hard drive rather than individual files.”This attack doesn’t just encrypt data for a ransom – but instead hijacks computers and prevents them from working altogether,” said Ken Spinner, vice president of Varonis. “The implications of this type of cyberattack spread far and wide: and can affect everything from government to banks to transportation.”Although Microsoft has patched the issue, which took advantage of a Windows vulnerability, users who haven’t downloaded the fix can still be hit. This is another reason why having a reliable patch management strategy is extremely critical.

“This new Petya ransomware variant is like WannaCry without the kill switch, spreading automatically from computer to computer by itself and locking files,” said Steve Malone, the director of security product management at Mimecas.

How to Protect Yourself

Windows computers that have installed both the March 2017 and April 2017 security-patch bundles should be immune to the ransomware attack. We strongly recommend identifying all vulnerable operating systems and patching immediately.

Many IT management tools rely on agents to identify and manage devices, but these tools may not support these older operating systems. If they do support the operating systems they are limited by only being able to patch devices which have an agent installed.

We strongly recommend using a solution like Syxsense, that supports older operating systems and has agentless ability to scan your entire IT environment for all devices and remediate without the need to have agents deployed.

Protect Against Petya

Start a free, 14-day Trial of Syxsense, which helps organizations from 50 to 10,000 endpoints monitor and manage their environment, all from just a web browser. An email will be automatically sent to the address you provide.

START YOUR FREE TRIAL OF SYXSENSE