Another Massive Ransomware Outbreak Is Going Global Fast

Ukraine’s government, National Bank, its transportation services and largest power companies are bearing the brunt of what appears to be a massive ransomware outbreak that’s fast spreading across the world and hitting a significant number of critical infrastructure providers.

Whispers of WannaCry abound, though some security experts said on Tuesday that a different breed, named Petya, was to blame. “[We’re seeing] several thousands of infection attempts at the moment, comparable in size to WannaCry’s first hours,” said Kaspersky Lab’s Costin Raiu, who added that the infections are occurring in many different countries. Another firm, BitDefender, said it believed a similar strain called GoldenEye was responsible. Later, security firms, including Kaspersky and Avast, said the malware responsible was actually an entirely new ransomware that had borrowed Petya code.

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